The Bird Mirror In Martigues – Watercolor Signed By Chaud – Early 20th Century

*Le Miroir aux Oiseaux* in Martigues — circa 1900–1930
Signed “Chaud,” artist to be identified
Watercolor on paper
Signed lower left in brown ink.
“Martigues” inscribed on the reverse.
37 x 26.5 cm (image size) — 45 x 34.5 cm with frame
Condition: Very clean sheet, slightly yellowed with age. A lighter strip at the top, along the mounting edge, indicates an old mounting that has remained in place.
Stained and waxed wooden frame, period (early 20th century), with a few old, inactive wormholes.

It is early, or perhaps it is the end of a windless afternoon. The water in the canal is still. Three bettes (boats) are moored along the dock, their masts bare, their hulls green and blue, and their reflections extend straight down into the water without breaking. Across from them, a house stretches its walls right up to the edge of the canal, with its wooden balcony and overhanging trellis. And then, above it all, a vast empty sky—taking up nearly half the page—allowing the scene to breathe.

This is the Miroir aux Oiseaux in Martigues—this small basin bordered by Quai Brescon and the Saint-Sébastien Canal, in the heart of the Île neighborhood. The fishermen of Martigues used to moor their *bettes* there—those six-meter-long boats rigged with lateen sails that can be seen here. The spot made the town’s reputation: Corot, Loubon, Ziem, and later Dufy came here to paint.

We were unable to identify the painter. The name does not appear in the usual reference works, which is not unusual for watercolorists who worked en plein air in the Midi between 1890 and 1930. The technique, however, speaks for itself: the drawing is laid out in pencil and then worked over with a brush; the washes are built up with transparency without ever being reworked; the white areas of the paper are left untouched in a single stroke. This is the work of a confident artist, capable of daring to depict an almost entirely empty sky and making it the subject of the painting.

Work on view at the gallery (07240)
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