Emile Noirot (1853–1924) Rouen—the Cour D’albane

Emile NOIROT
(Roanne, 1853 – Saint-Germain-des-Fossés, 1924)
Rouen, the Cour d’Albane
Pastel
H. 50 cm; W. 34 cm
Signed, located, and dated lower right
1900

Although most of Noirot’s works are landscapes of his region (Roanne, Saint-Étienne), the artist traveled extensively. Monaco, the Var, the Dauphiné (he was a founding member of the Society of Mountain Painters), Italy, the Forest of Fontainebleau (where he stayed for six years and, incidentally, had the “Barbizon School” artists ” François-Louis Français and Charles-François Daubigny), as well as Brittany—and thus Normandy, as evidenced by our pastel. Noirot also exhibited a work titled *A Cliff at Yport* at the 1908 Toulouse Salon. But that is about all he produced in Normandy.

The artist exhibited regularly at the Salon beginning in 1866 and won several medals there.
Here, like Monet in 1892, Noirot chose to depict the entrance to the Cour d’Albane, located northwest of Rouen Cathedral, with houses nestled at the foot of the buttresses of the Saint-Romain Tower. These were destroyed during the bombings of 1944.