François Marius Berthet (1885–1941) In The Carénage Basin – Old Port Of Marseille

White masses on the quay, likely blocks of Carrara marble or Cassis stone, a unloading barge, to the leftthe Pont Transbordeur, and in the background the Old Quarters of Marseille.
Generous brushstrokes applied with great skill and thewarm colors of a late afternoon on the dry dock basin of the Old Portof Marseille characterize this distinctive work by the Marseille painter François MariusBerthet (1885–1941).
The work is executed in oil on cardboard and is offeredin a wide, gilded frame (which can be replaced with a modernshadow box frame) measuring 46.5 cm by 54 cm, with thepainting itself measuring 25 cm by 33 cm.
In its original, good condition, it is signed in the lowerleft corner.

A painter of the Marseilles Canal Bohemian scene, hefollowed in the footsteps of Louis Audibert in the 1920s with thePoteau group, then became associated with the Proletarian Painters group at the Maison de la Culturein 1936. With his partner Marthe Aquarone, he had left the countryside of L’Enclosin Le Merlan and, in 1938, shared a studio at what is now 30 Coursd’Estienne d’Orves (30 Cours du Vieux Port at the time).They also exhibited together at the Union des Artistes deProvence, Berthet mainly landscapes, seascapes, and drawings, and Aquaronefigures and landscapes. Here is Berthet as well, the spitting image of Alfred de Musset; helived in Le Merlan and would take a taxi down to Marseille on the good days when hesquandered his funds, and the tram when he was broke, for moneyburned a hole in his pocket. This exquisite man, of incomparable culture and erudition,nearly got shot in 1917. Although a soldier in the army, hesent defeatist drawings to dissident publications (they already existedback then), but he managed to appease the anger of the Colonel who wanted to send him to the Falotand did not die until 1941, mourned by all the Montparnassians of Marseille.