Henri Jamet (1858-1940) Mill In The Moonlight, Creuse. Crozant School, Gargilesse, Detroy

Superb gouache watercolor by Henri Jamet representing a mill in the moonlight, most likely in Creuse, signed lower left. Format of the gouache seen outside the frame 24x31cm. In perfect condition, delivered in a very pretty modern gilded frame. Work guaranteed authentic. This is therefore a magnificent post-impressionist composition by Henri Jamet who paints here a mill on the riverbank at night, most likely in the Creuse. As usual, Jamet mastered this technique to the best of his ability, surely the one where he excelled the most; and here even stronger, the rendering of the motif under a starry night is sumptuous, with only 2/3 colors the essential is there. For information, this gouache watercolor is part of a series of 4, the other 3 being sold, and one of the 3 represented exactly the same motif by day, the same mill with almost the same framing (see last photo). Henri Jamet is today one of the 10 best painters of the Crozant school, and one of the 3 most famous artists of the village of Gargilesse alongside Detroy and Allan Osterlind, since he lived there for a large part of his life, just opposite the castle. Henri Pierre Jamet, born in Gien (Loiret) on September 25, 1858 and died in Gargilesse (Indre) on October 17, 1940, was a student of Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, then of Henri Harpignies and Albert Maignan. Henri Jamet's artistic career took place mainly between Montmartre and Gargilesse, where his wife Marie Mahout—also a painter—and he himself had a house and a secondary studio. By turns a decorator, a landscaper particularly attached to the Creuse valley, but also an author of still lifes and a skilled portraitist, he appears above all as a master of genre painting. We owe him in particular several Berry Interiors. A member of the French Artists Association, he was awarded numerous prizes at the various exhibitions in which he participated, both in Paris and in the provinces. He notably won a bronze medal at the 1900 Universal Exhibition for A Family of Weavers and The Widow's Garden. He is represented in several French museums (in Paris at the Petit Palais, Auxerre, Châteauroux, La Châtre, Bourges, Orléans) and in Russia (former Roumyantsev Museum in Moscow, current location unknown). He participated in the decoration of the Château de Charbonnière in Saint-Jean-de-Braye and that of the town hall of Montrouge. The decorative panels he had created for the Saint-Pierre church in Gien were declared destroyed during the bombings of 1940. According to the newspaper "Le Giennois" of March 15, 1941, two of them - to this day not located - could however have been removed from the ruins of the church "without being too damaged." Henri Jamet is the father of Pierre Jamet (1893-1991) and the grandfather of Marie-Claire Jamet, (born in 1933), both internationally renowned harpists. He is also the father of Charles Jamet, cellist, and the grandfather of Lucien Jamet, painter and ceramist. He is the great-grandfather of Jean-François Jamet and Eric Jamet (1957-2019). He died in Gargilesse on October 17, 1940. For your information, there is an excellent book dedicated to Henri Jamet produced by Christian Jamet and Jean-Marc Ferrer by "les Ardents éditeurs" in Limoges, a book which accompanied some very beautiful exhibitions at the museums of the Creuse Valley in Eguzon and Gien. (You can get it on the publisher's website or in any good bookstore.)