Victor Protais (1870-1905) The Sea Urchin Fisherman

A subtle and dancing touch, light brushstrokes applied in an almost musical way which give this pretty oil on canvas by the painter Victor Protais a charm and a serene atmosphere, that of a traditional sea urchin fishing scene on board a a boat, where the fisherman equipped with a long gaff ending in a three-pronged hook harvests sea urchins in shallow water from his small boat. A scene which nowadays tends to disappear and which therefore remains a nice testimony to a bygone era. The work is offered in a pretty gilded and sculpted frame which measures 51 cm by 69 and 35 cm by 55 for the canvas alone. In good condition, on the back, an old restoration and some usual cracks for a work from this period. A simple, luminous and endearing painting of a gifted artist, who died too young, killed by his partner during a passionate argument.

Talented painter and caricaturist in his spare time, prolific in his works (especially landscapes and seascapes which adorned most of Toulon's establishments including the Rotonde, the Alsatian Tavern, the Café du Commerce, the Pousset brasserie and other howlers of the city), having attended the School of Fine Arts in Lyon, Victor Girard known as Protais, born in Besançon, was a very well-known artist in the region. With his bohemian, carefree, witty dandy appearance, his eternal velvet suit, his shaggy hair, Protais was a truculent character, “with populist verve”… and renowned for his notorious intemperance. He lived as a husband and wife with Fernande Louise, seven years his senior, (42 years old at the time of the events). For ten years they had traveled in Algeria, Tunisia and all along the Mediterranean coast. Fernande Louise from the age of 17 had led “a gallant life” in Paris, from lovers to lovers, from naval officer to naval officer, before falling in love with this young 25-year-old artist while she was 32... The entire neighborhood of this quiet neighborhood suffered from the couple's nocturnal and drunken arguments which most of the time ended in fistfights, until the famous evening of the tragedy, October 19, 1905 when Protais was shot dead. with a revolver in the chest by his mistress, after he had handled a sword taken from a panoply and slashed the portraits he had painted of his muse... Disturbing detail, a few hours before passing from life to death, Victor was drawing a decorative panel for a tomb, joking that it wouldn't be his. Note that four subscriptions were raised to pay for this burial as well as the land which hosted the mortal remains of the young painter. The trial of Louise Marie Briard was held on February 2, 1906 at the Var assize court. It was the court-appointed lawyer, Maître Gouzian, who had to defend the accused, a brilliant pleading in which the reasons for the dispute were mentioned in turn, sometimes relating to the dogs in the house, the soup at supper, and even a more serious dispute, Protais having supported this thesis unacceptable to Fernande that Jesus would have been more socialist than Jaurès. A fight ensued, a scuffle during which she tried to snatch the pistol with which he was threatening her from Victor's hands; poorette (fortunately because this hypothesis was completely ruled out by the forensic doctor who affirmed that the bullet had been fired from a distance, but “Planète Justice” was not yet broadcasting its investigations). The argument developed by Master Gouzian was that "this poor, grieving widow that you have before you on this bench of infamy", certainly a former demi-mondaine but who had abandoned the easy life, the luxury and the pleasures of Parisian life by love for this penniless bohemian could not have intentionally killed the one she loved... Louise Marie Briand known as Fernande was therefore acquitted. A few paintings by Protais remain, imbued with a luminous and serene atmosphere, like those presented here…