A REDISCOVERED
PAUL SIGNAC

Last recorded in 1912 when the esteemed Paris gallery Bernheim-Jeune sold it to a prominent Munich collector, the Neo-Impressionist masterpiece never featured in publications or exhibitions during his lifetime. Though listed in Cachin’s catalogue raisonné, the oil is not illustrated there, and only a small ink sketch of it was known in the Signac archive. ‘Saint-Tropez, port en fête’, offered in our June auction, ranks among the earliest large-scale examples of this phase and represents a significant discovery in Signac’s oeuvre.

In the early 1890s, following the death of his companion Georges Seurat, Signac left Paris behind and made Saint-Tropez the centre of his life and work. ‘Happiness – that is what I have just discovered’ he wrote to his mother at the time.

Here his pointillist style grows more intense in hue, suffused with light and freer in composition. In this harbour scene, Signac’s affection for the little fishing village merges with his assured technique. Even in this early work, he had found his unmistakable touch: in a pointillist manner, he conjures a dreamlike view of the festooned Mediterranean harbour, complete with colourful pennants and billowing sails in the southern sun. The harmony of blues, seamlessly interwoven with touches of white, pink and contrasting red and yellow, gives the painting an cheerful vitality.

GUSTAVE
LOISEAU

Les peupliers au bord de la rivière, 1899
Oil on canvas, 71 × 92 cm
Estimate:
CHF 150 000 / 250 000