Côte d’Opale is an exquisite little picture painted around 1900 by the artist, who was probably on holiday at the home of his friends Laure and Georges Flé, with whom he had a habit and from whom he travelled up and down the coast, working tirelessly to produce some very fine portraits and landscapes of the coast or town (Le port de Boulogne or Champs de courses à Boulogne, for example), with or without movement (think of the well-known painting La promenade, showing women walking on the beach). Côte d’Opale was rediscovered in a collection in Brussels while I was preparing the artist’s retrospective at Bozar Brussels and Gemeentemuseum The Hague (2006).
The work had been kept out of sight for a century, having probably been sold by the artist in 1904, according to the date on a letter stuck to the back and its exhibition at Bozar.

Sold for 53760€ In perfect condition, in a frame that could be original, this very luminous 26.8 x 34.7 cm painting, signed with the monogram, is very representative of the artist’s post-divisionist technique, which knew how to make shimmering colours vibrate. The painting will be included in the catalogue raisonné that I am currently preparing. This will once again correct the pamphlet published in 2003, from which, incidentally, it is absent. Which is not a surprise, one might add… or even good news.

AZ Auction, vente 1er avril, 13h30, lot numéro 125
www.azauction.be
39b avenue des Casernes
1040 Bruxelles