André Des Gachons -

André DES GACHONS Ardennes (Indre), 1871 - Chaussée-sur-Marne (Marne), 1951 Watercolor 39.5 x 63 cm (47 x 70.5 cm with the frame) Signed lower left and dated "André des Gachons / 1945 "Titled lower right" L'Echo "Beautiful frame from the modern period André Stanislas Albert Peyrot des Gachons is a painter who exhibited at the Paris Salon delicate watercolors in the Symbolist style from 1892. He also exhibited two both at the Salon des Cent in November 1895 and January 1898. He was a student of William Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury at the Jullian Academy. Our watercolor is titled “L'Echo”, a pretext for a pretty mountain landscape with a beautiful young woman, an allegorical figure of the echo. The Symbolist painting which replaced the mythological painting of yesteryear remains here in the end very close. According to the Greek poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses, Echo was an oread, a mountain nymph. She had offended Hera by preventing her by her gossip from watching over Zeus' infidelities. To punish her, Hera cut her off, leaving her only the ability to repeat the last words of her interlocutor!