Lot 217: Albert Dubois-Pillet , 1846 - 1890 LE PUY, LA PLACE ENSOLEILÉE oil on canvas

Painted circa 1889-90. signed Dubois-Pillet (lower right) oil on canvas

82.8 by 61.5cm., 32 1/4 by 24 1/4 in.

Lily Bazalgette, Albert Dubois-Pillet, sa vie et son oeuvre (1846-1890), Paris, 1976, mentioned p. 149
John Rewald, Post-Impressionism from Van Gogh to Gauguin, London, 1978, illustrated p. 124

Mme Audiard, Le Puy
Sale: Galliéra, Paris, 10th December 1966
Stephen Higgons, Paris
Private Collection, United Kingdom (acquired from the above in 1967; sale: Sotheby's, London, 1st July 1998, lot 124)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
Greatly influenced by the genius of Georges Seurat, Dubois-Pillet adopted the style Divisionism, which he adapted to suit his own means of paint application. By placing complimentary colours against one another it becomes possible to create a highly textured tone and pigment. The present work, displaying the town square of Puy-en-Velay in the Midi, was painted circa 1889-90, just five years after the masterpiece of Neo-Impressionism - Seurat's Un dimanche après-midi sur l'Île de la Grand Jatte. Dubois-Pillet achieves a masterful touch in this work - with its bold composition and hazy, mediterranean glow emanating from the pinks and reds of the surface. The true expression of emotion, Seurat wrote, was the harmony of colours bound together to a greater whole - which seems to have been achieved in Le Puy: La Place ensoleilée.