Henri Blanc-fontaine (1819-1897). The Deserter, Scene From Hautes-alpes

Le déserteur, scène des Hautes-Alpes
Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1858 lower left. 120 x 180 cm
Blanc-Fontaine, Diodore Rahoult and their Peruvian painter friend Francisco Laso spent the summer of 1853 in the Hautes-Alpes. They stay in La Grave at the inn of Father Pic, a former peddler. Exploring the hamlets perched on the slopes of the mountains, they immersed themselves in the harshness of the peasant conditions of this region which only had three months of good weather, and multiplied the sketches and sketches which they brought back to Grenoble. Blanc-Fontaine then draws the subjects of his paintings from these studies. He presented in Paris at the Universal Exhibition of 1855 The Old Women of La Grave, a painting now kept at the Grenoble Museum. In 1861, still at the Paris Salon, he showed Undimanche aux vespers, a souvenir of La Grave; in the meantime he composed Le Déserteur in 1858. The scene takes place on the heights of Chazelet facing the peaks and glaciers of La Meije. An old woman and her husband witness the departure of their military but refractory son, taken away by two gendarmes on horseback. Wrinkled, weighed down by age and work, their countenance seems to express great sadness and resignation. They know that desertion is considered a crime and that the perpetrator is sent to the galleys. A temple with unreal architecture, recalls the survival in this region of Oisans, of the Protestant faith in which the two unfortunate old men could take refuge in their pain. Exhibition: • Salon de Paris 1859 n°279 • Salon de Lyon dec.1859 - janv.1860 n°7 Provenance: • In 1879 our painting adorned the walls of the Hôtel Moderne in Grenoble, property of Mr Rivier • Private collection in the region Parisian Bibliography: • Aristide Albert. The painter Blanc-Fontaine Grenoble, Dauphinoise bookstore 1909, description of the painting page 18.