Jean Louis Paguenaud (1876-1952) Cruiser In Rough Seas. Limoges, Marine, Marin Marie Voyageur

A very attractive watercolor and gouache painting by Jean Louis Paguenaud depicting a cruiser on a rough sea, signed lower right. The watercolor alone measures 15.5 x 23.5 cm (excluding the frame) and 27 x 35 cm (including the frame). In very good original condition, in its period frame with a gray patina. The work is guaranteed authentic. This is a lovely watercolor and gouache painting by Jean-Louis Paguenaud, who here paints what he does best: a seascape featuring a cruiser. A beautiful work sketched during one of his many voyages, surely executed in just a few minutes, hence its powerful quality. Jean-Louis Paguenaud, pseudonym of Jean-Philippe Paguenaud, born June 30, 1876, in Coussac-Bonneval (Haute-Vienne), and died May 31, 1952, in Limoges (Haute-Vienne), was a French painter, an official painter of the Navy, one of the most famous along with Marin-Marie, Brenet, Morchain, Chapelet, and others. Jean-Philippe Paguenaud spent part of his childhood in Algiers, where he discovered the sea, before his father, a gendarme, was transferred to Limoges. There, he attended the School of Decorative Arts while working as a painter in a porcelain factory. He then studied under William Bouguereau before joining the navy. He brought back gouaches and drawings from his travels, which he exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1905. In 1914, his brother Joseph-Louis died in combat. To honor his memory, he decided to sign his works using one of his brother's first names. In 1922, he passed the competitive examination to become an official painter of the Navy. He lived for a time on a barge in Paris, then returned to settle in Limoges where he died in 1952. He is buried in the Louyat cemetery. His works are held in Paris at the Musée de la Marine (National Maritime Museum) and in Bordeaux at the Naval Medical School.