Henri Le Sidaner - The Balustrade - Drawing

Henri LE SIDANER (1862 – 1939)
La Balustrade
Circa 1911
Drawing on paper
18×12.7 cm / 27.2×22.6 cm framed
Signed lower left “Le Sidaner”
Small gap restored in the margin lower right, small trace of foxing lower left
Provenance: descendants of the artist
The work is sold framed and visible by appointment in Boulogne-Billancourt.
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This silent landscape, devoid of any human presence, presents light effects and vibrations characteristic of the “quilted” style of Henri Le Sidaner, which he declined in a very personal way throughout his work. According to the testimony of his son Rémy, the artist considered that “no landscape should be painted without a light effect that highlights it”[1].
In this drawing, the areas left in reserve on the ground and along the low wall to transcribe the light contrast with the shadows cast, indicating that it was probably executed at the end of the day, at the moment when the contours of things become blurred, a moment that Camille Mauclair also described as "Le Sidaner hour"[2].
The composition of our drawing is identical to that of the lithograph La Balustrade, published in July 1911 in the Gazette des beaux-arts. The more accomplished treatment of the lithograph suggests that the drawing is a preparatory study, especially since there is no listed painting reproducing the subject. Note, however, that a painting from 1911, entitled Jardin sur l'eau, offers a variation based on the motif of the balustrade on the left-hand side[3].

[1] Yann Farinaux-Le Sidaner, Le Sidaner, L’oeuvre peint et gravé, Paris, Éditions André Sauret, 1989, p.9.
[2] Ibid.
[3] This oil on canvas is kept at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (inv. 39.658) and reproduced on their website: https://collections.mfa.org/objects/32695/garden-by-a-pool; jsessionid=A82AC72AAC5DD73FB587DD3C57F84EA3