Adrien MOREAU, Troyes 1843 - Paris 1906 Les tréteaux... Lot 13

Adrien MOREAU, Troyes 1843 - Paris 1906 Les tréteaux de Tabarin au Pont Neuf Oil on canvas Signed lower right 90.5 x 117 cm In his original frame Adrien Moreau, history and genre painter, was a pupil of Léon Cogniet and then Isidore Pils at the Paris School of Fine Arts. His paintings represent subjects from all periods, and in this one from the end of the Renaissance. Adrien Moreau brilliantly composes a popular scene animated with numerous characters in a Paris skilfully recreated at the idea of the 19th century. Tabarin, whose real name was Antoine Girard (Verdun 1854 - Paris 1626) was a boatman and actor of the fairground theater. Sitting on a stage set up on the Place Dauphine in Paris, he improvised monologues, called out to passers-by, dialogued with the crowd or even with a fellow actor. His harangues also gave him the opportunity to sell balms and remedies. He would have had an influence on Molière, who would himself be the least academic of comic authors. In Voltaire's Dictionnaire philosophique he appears as follows: "Tabarin, proper noun, now appellative noun. Tabarin, valet of Mondor, charlatan on the Pont-Neuf at the time of Henri IV, gave this name to coarse madmen " Expert : Michel MAKET