$38,100
Estimate: $15,000 - $25,000
What Do You See? The Collection of Sidney Rothberg, Part I
Auction: February 27, 2024 at 12 PM ET
Signed ‘Manguin’ bottom left; also signed and dated on original label verso and with preparer's stencil verso, oil on canvas laid down to board
13 x 16 in. (33 x 40.6cm)
Executed in July-August 1919.
The Artist.
Acquired directly from the above in January 1920.
Galerie Druet (Madame E. Druet), Paris (inventory #9133, per original label verso).
Jacques Zoubaloff, Paris, circa 1921.
His Sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, sale of May 20, 1929, lot 52.
The Collection of Sidney Rothberg, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Lucile et Claude Manguin, Henri Manguin: Catalogue Raisonné de l'Oeuvre Peint," Ides et Calendes, Neuchâtel, 1980, p. 220, no. 619 (illustrated).
In 1919, after five years of absence, Manguin returned to the South of France with enthusiasm, and rediscovered the colorful landscapes that inspired him from 1904 to 1914. The artist and his family settled near Marseille, in an old convent called La Servianne, which Manguin “intend[ed] to use to make important canvases.”
In the present work, a colorful landscape evokes the serenity that Manguin and his family found at La Servianne. With a lush palette, Manguin conveys the charm of his environs, and composes an ode to a simpler, bucolic way of life. Unlike to his earlier canvases of St. Tropez, Les Pins Autour de la Servianne adopts a freer, more harmonious touch that blends together. A master colorist, Manguin employs rich pinks and purples, which contrast with saturated greens and make for a soothing ensemble that lulls viewers.
Fellow painter Félix Vallotton summarized this sensation while standing before a Manguin oil in 1909: “It makes me feel warm inside.” By painting in this way, Manguin added a modern touch and Fauve flair to an older Arcadian motif, similar to Paul Cézanne, Paul Signac and Henri-Edmond Cross, who captured the scorching hot ‘Midi’ and turned it into a mythological place where time and space ceased to exist.