Paul Raffet. Main Facade Of The Château De La Plaine (fondettes, Indre-et-loire), 19th Century.

Black ink and gray wash. 46.7 x 59.5 cm. One horizontal fold and one vertical fold. A few small marginal tears, without loss or seriousness. A small loss of paper to the left of the sheet at the edge of the fold. Signed lower left in pencil: "Paul Raffet". Elevation of the facade. Mention above the title: "2nd project". Under the title: "Scale of 0m, 01c for 1 meter". The Château de la Plaine was built in Fondettes (Indre-et-Loire) for Eugène Goüin between 1872 and 1874, after the old manor burned down at the end of the war of 1870. This proposal by Paul Raffet was not retained and the château was built by the Tours architect Edmond Meffre. Eugène Goüin (1818-1919) was mayor of Fondettes, senator, deputy and general councilor of Indre-et-Loire, and mayor of Tours. The Château de la Plaine now houses the Lycée Agrocampus de Tours-Fondettes. Paul Léon Marie Raffet was born in Tours (Indre-et-Loire) on April 28, 1846 and died in the same city in January 1902. The son of a baker, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1864 in the studio of Simon Constant-Dufeux, but he was unable to complete his studies. He had a successful career as an architect in his hometown, where he built many private houses (including his own). He worked mainly in Indre-et-Loire but also in Sarthe, Loire-Atlantique and Loir-et-Cher, building hotels, villas, town halls, schools, factories, etc. He received first prize in the competition for the construction of the town hall of Le Mans in 1880. Paul Raffet exhibited at the Salon des artistes français from 1875 and received several exhibition medals: Exposition des Beaux-arts de Tours in 1881 and 1892, Angers in 1895, Bourges in 1897, Le Mans in 1899, Versailles in 1900, etc., as well as medals at the Universal Exhibitions of Paris in 1889 and 1900. He published in the Revue générale de l'architecture et des Travaux publics, in the Semaine des constructeurs, in the Annales de la construction moderne, in Architecture pour tous, in the Croquis d'Architecture, and was a member of the Société centrale des architectes, the Caisse de défense mutuelle des architectes, the Société des architectes de la Touraine, and the Société des Artistes français. Paul Raffet is the father of Georges Raffet, born in 1883, who was also a student at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, in the studio of the architect Marcel Lambert (between 1908 and 1912). Ref. A10-21