Emile FRIANT (Dieuze, Moselle 1863 - Paris 1932) Beggar... Lot 63

Emile FRIANT (Dieuze, Moselle 1863 - Paris 1932) Beggar in a church Mahogany panel, two boards, not parqueted. Signed in the upper right corner E. Friant and dated 87. Bears on the back an old inscription M. Coquelin/ Rue de Presbourg, 6. 66,5 x 48,5 cm Provenance: collection Constant Coquelin, known as Coquelin aîné; sale, Coquelin collection, gallery Georges Petit, Paris, May 27, 1893, n°34; sale, collection C. Coquelin, galerie Georges Petit, Paris, June 9, 1906, n°45. Exhibition: Exposition des 33, 2nd year, galerie Georges Petit, Paris, January 1889, n°108. Bibliography: Catalogue of the exhibition L'école de Nancy, Peinture et Art nouveau, Nancy, musée des Beaux-Arts, 1999, cited p. 48, 135. Henri Claude, Friant, Serge Domini ed. 2005, quoted p. 100; catalog de l'exposition Friant, le dernier naturaliste?, Nancy, musée des Beaux-Arts, 2016-17, cited p. 188. The Beggar, sometimes titled The Blind Man, was known to this day only by the descriptions in the two sales catalogs of the collection of the famous actor Constant Coquelin, known as Coquelin aîné, in 1893 and 1906. Its reappearance is very interesting because it is undoubtedly close to La Toussaint (1889, Musée des Beaux Arts, Nancy) the des Beaux Arts, Nancy) the most famous work of Emile Friant. The painting represents the beggar Auger (sometimes spelled Ogé) sitting asleep at the entrance of a church plunged in the dark. Auger was a popular figure known to all the people of Nancy if we are to believe Charles de Meixmoron de Dombasle (E. Friant, Nancy 1896, p. 30). The subject is of an uncompromising realism, nevertheless the atmosphere is imbued with a certain spirituality, due perhaps to the red light of a stained glass window in the background and to the flickering light of a candle, cutting through the darkness of the church and linked, by a symbolic slant, to the hands of the symbolic oblique, to Auger's hands crossed in a gesture evoking prayer and resignation. From this tightly framed composition, with a great sobriety of means and colors, emanates a feeling of peace and of peace and serenity. Beyond the compassion, Friant expresses all the sympathy and the respect which he feels towards the underprivileged. There is no political or social ulterior motive but only a message of humanity The beggar is related to the naturalist movement that emerged in painting towards the end of the 1870s. Emile Friant adheres to this movement which wants to be an objective witness of the life of the excluded of the society. With sincerity and with sincerity and sensitivity he invests this iconography of vagabonds, beggars and other unfortunates and paints in particular The Drinkers (1884, Nancy, Musée des Beaux-Arts) and The Tramp (1890, Stockholm, Nationalmuseum). At the same time, many painters were inspired by the same vein, for example Bastien Lepage, Raffaelli, Dagnan Bouveret, Fernand Pelez We find the moving figure of Auger, practically without any without any modification, in La Toussaint (1889), a subject that Friant had been thinking about since 1886. His clothes and attitude are identical in the two compositions, but La Toussaint shows the old beggar beggar from the front, in a neutral frontality that invites observation. On the other hand, his vulnerability and weakness are revealed in a cruder way, in contrast with the imposing solidity of the group of bourgeois from Nancy and by the gesture of charity that they are about to make, a gesture on which he depends to survive. The spectacular format of La Toussaint, its visual power and the modernity of its framing evoking a photographic snapshot, fascinated the public and the critics as soon as it was exhibited at the Salon in 1889. It was an immediate success and continued well into the 20th century. It is interesting to think that the composition of this work so celebrated, commented and reproduced, could have appeared to Friant in the shadow of a church porch, while he was painting Auger in The Beggar. We thank the Association Emile Friant who kindly confirmed the authenticity of the painting and gave us the bibliographical references, as well as Mrs. Pascale Pavageau for the writing of the notice.