A new Monfreid preempted by Montpellier

27/10/23 - Acquisition - Montpellier, Musée Fabre - As we have already mentioned on several occasions (see news items and articles), since 2017 the Musée Fabre has been building up a collection of works by Georges Daniel de Monfreid, the latest addition to its collections dedicated to important figures at the crossroads of the Parisian art networks and the painting scene in the Midi region. An artist and collector, Monfreid follows in the footsteps of François-Xavier Fabre, a historic donor to the Musée Fabre in Montpellier. The seventh work to join the monographic corpus, the Portrait of Gustave le Rouge was preempted for €69,300 (including fees) last Friday in Paris at Christie’s, which is organising a new sale of the Josefowitz collection from October to December in a series of six sales divided between London and Paris. The Paris sale was punctuated by a second preemption, from the Musée d’Orsay, which acquired a masterpiece by Emile Bernard, Baigneuses aux nénuphars (see news item of 25/10/23).

Georges-Daniel de Monfreid (1856-1929)
Portrait of Gustave le Rouge, 1896
Oil on paper mounted on canvas - 48.5 x 65 cm
Montpellier, Musée Fabre
Photo: Christie’s

See the image in its page

Signed and dated February 1896, the large oil on paper portrait also bears a dedication from the painter to the sitter in the upper right "souvenir d’amitiés au poète Gustave Le Rouge" ("memory of friendships to the poet Gustave Le Rouge"). Although it was not included in the portrait gallery that formed the final section of the recent retrospective at the Musée Hyacinthe Rigaud (see article), this effigy was presented at the first strictly monographic exhibition dedicated to the artist by the Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la Dentelle d’Alençon and the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Narbonne in 2003. The catalogue note published for the occasion indicated that the background to this portrait was known with great precision, mentioned several times in the artist’s…