Original Drawing Of The Saint-antoine Bridge In Clisson By Jules Noël, Circa 1855

Pencil drawing on paper representing the Saint Antoine bridge crossing the Moine in Clisson. Signed lower left and titled lower right. Drawing sold unframed. Dimensions of the board 29.7 cm x 46.7 cm.

Admire the finesse and precision of the drawing, revealing the skills of 19th-century painters.

A certificate of authenticity from Michel Rodrigue, expert at the Union Française des Experts and author with André Cariou of a book on Jules Noël published in 2005 for an exhibition dedicated to the artist at the Quimper museum.

Jules Noël (1810-1881) was born to a Breton mother (Plougasnou) and a father from Meurthe-et-Moselle (Sornéville). Although born in Nancy, he spent most of his childhood in Finistère (Quimper then Lennon). He is the sixth of eight siblings.
It was his father who first introduced him to drawing, then he took lessons with Louis-Gabriel Charrioux, a teacher from Brest, before moving on to Paris and the teaching of Jean-Victor Bertin. His father's death in 1835 brought him back to Brittany to teach drawing, first in Saint-Pol-de-Léon, then in Lorient. It was here that he met Adèle Cécile Constance Caris, daughter of a Lorient bookseller, who became his wife in 1837, and gave him two daughters. It was from his brother-in-law Eugène Michaux, a naval lieutenant, that he drew his maritime knowledge. It was in Nantes that their first daughter was born, and it was also there that he was introduced to the Duc de Nemours, earning him his first commission from the latter and a recommendation to teach drawing at the prestigious Lycée Henri IV in Paris, where he settled in 1845.
From 1840 onwards, he exhibited at almost all the Paris salons, and continued to do so until 1879. During the school vacations, he traveled to Brittany (Auray and Hennebont, his in-laws' region, as well as the port towns of Finistère) and Normandy to paint landscapes and seascapes. His reputation continued to grow. In 1849, he received an encouragement prize, and was asked by the Minister of the Interior to copy a painting in the Louvre. In 1867, on the death of his mother, he signed his name with an upside-down "N", as she did on her paintings. In 1874, his second daughter married the painter Gaston Roullet. Following health and financial problems, in 1877 he decided to join his eldest daughter in Algiers, where he died in 1881.
Using sketches taken on the spot, Jules Noël recomposed lively paintings in his studio, combining his love of landscapes with genre scenes featuring a wealth of detail. This recomposition work in the studio often leads him to transform the setting according to his mood of the moment. Jules Noël can be found in many museums, including Quimper, Brest, Vannes, Lille, Versailles and London.