Description
Victor HUGO (Besançon, 1802 - Paris, 1885) Souvenir de Belgique, 1850 Pen and brown ink wash, charcoal, white gouache highlights and scratching. Original frame decorated by the artist with the inscription "Souvenir de Belgique" at the top and the signature "Victor Hugo" at the bottom right. (Tear at the bottom center on 3 cm). 15,5 x 59 cm 48,5 x 88 cm with its frame Provenance : - Probably given by Victor Hugo to his son Charles Hugo (1826-1871). - Collection Charles Hugo (1826-1871) Brussels (?). - Collection Georges Hugo (1868-1925) Paris, collection Jean Hugo (1894-1984), collection Lunel. - Hugo sale, Christie's, Paris, April 4, 2012, No. 179. Bibliography: - Bernadette Grynberg and Jean Massin, Victor Hugo, Œuvre graphique, vol. II, t. XVIII, n° 454 reproduced [M II 454] in Victor Hugo, Œuvres complètes, chronological edition published under the direction of Jean Massin, Paris, Club Français du livre, 1967-1971 [OCM]. - Victor Hugo, Bruxelles et la Belgique: exposition tenue en la salle ogivale de l'Hôtel de Ville du 22 mars au 28 avril 1985, en commémoration du centenaire de la mort de l'illustre poète, cat. exp.Brussels, 1985, cat. 121, p. 47, reproduced. - P. Georgel, Victor Hugo, 1850, Le Burg à la croix, Paris, 2007, n° 2, p. 11, 76 and 83. Exhibitions : - Victor Hugo, exposition organisée pour commémorer le cent-cinquantième anniversaire de sa naissance, Paris, B.N., 1952, n° 384 (notice de Jean Prinet). - P. Georgel, Dessins de Victor Hugo, Villequier-Paris, Paris, Maison de Victor Hugo, (November 1971-January 1972), n° 72. - Dessins et ébauches de Victor Hugo provenant de la succession Hugo, Paris, galerie Lucie Weill, 1972, n° 8 (notice by Pierre Georgel). - Soleil d'Encre, Paris, musée du Petit Palais, 3 October 1985-5 January 1986, n° 126, ill. p. 111 (notice by Judith Petit). - Victor Hugo, l'homme océan, Paris, B.N.F., 2002, n° 171 of the catalog (not exhibited). Elected deputy of the Second Republic in 1848, Victor Hugo temporarily stopped writing and began to draw large sheets of paper: "For the first and last time, for the space of a few months, which did not go beyond the year 1850, Hugo transferred to drawing the creative powers that had previously belonged to literature" (P. Georgel, "Histoire d'un peintre malgré lui, Victor Hugo, ses dessins et les autres", in Victor Hugo, Œuvre graphique, by Bernadette Grynberg and Jean Massin, vol. II, t. XVIII, p. 24). Having gone into exile after opposing the coup d'état of Napoleon III, Victor Hugo eventually settled in Jersey where he acquired his residence at Hauteville House. In 1859, he began decorating his new home. He created decorated frames, titled and signed, in which he incorporated his drawings. The drawing and the frame together form a new work in its own right and become inseparable. Only four drawings of this size are known to be framed in this way: the first three, in public collections, were hung in the billiard room of Hauteville House: Souvenir des Vosges (Villequier, Musée Départemental Victor Hugo); Souvenir de la Forêt-Noire (Paris, Musée Victor Hugo) and Souvenir d'Espagne (Paris, Musée Victor Hugo). Ours, titled Souvenir de Belgique, must have been given by Victor Hugo to his son at the same time, and remains the only one in private hands today.Our drawing probably refers to Victor Hugo's solitary trip to Belgium during the year 1837. It is a memory of these northern plains, where a burg or a castle is enthroned in the middle of a bewitching mist. The day flees to give free rein to Victor Hugo's dark imagination: "If he were not a poet, Victor Hugo would be a painter of the first order... He excels in mixing in his dark and fierce fantasies, the effects of Goya's chiaroscuro with the architectural terror of Piranesi; he knows how to sketch, in the middle of threatening shadows, with a ray of moonlight or a flash of lightning, the towers of a dismantled burg and, on a livid ray of setting sun, to cut out in black the silhouette of a distant city with its series of spires, bell towers and belfries. "(see: Théophile Gautier, Souvenirs romantiques, Paris, Éditions Adolphe Boschot, Garnier, 1929, p. 102). The sheet must originally have been larger, for a fragment (16.7 x 10.9 cm) relating to the lower part of our drawing is preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (N.a.f. 13355), [M II 950].
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Victor HUGO (Besançon, 1802 - Paris, 1885) Souvenir de Belgique, 1850 Pen and brown ink wash, charcoal, white gouache highlights and scratching. Original frame decorated by the artist with the inscription "Souvenir de Belgique" at the top and the signature "Victor Hugo" at the bottom right. (Tear at the bottom center on 3 cm). 15,5 x 59 cm 48,5 x 88 cm with its frame Provenance : - Probably given by Victor Hugo to his son Charles Hugo (1826-1871). - Collection Charles Hugo (1826-1871) Brussels (?). - Collection Georges Hugo (1868-1925) Paris, collection Jean Hugo (1894-1984), collection Lunel. - Hugo sale, Christie's, Paris, April 4, 2012, No. 179. Bibliography: - Bernadette Grynberg and Jean Massin, Victor Hugo, Œuvre graphique, vol. II, t. XVIII, n° 454 reproduced [M II 454] in Victor Hugo, Œuvres complètes, chronological edition published under the direction of Jean Massin, Paris, Club Français du livre, 1967-1971 [OCM]. - Victor Hugo, Bruxelles et la Belgique: exposition tenue en la salle ogivale de l'Hôtel de Ville du 22 mars au 28 avril 1985, en commémoration du centenaire de la mort de l'illustre poète, cat. exp.Brussels, 1985, cat. 121, p. 47, reproduced. - P. Georgel, Victor Hugo, 1850, Le Burg à la croix, Paris, 2007, n° 2, p. 11, 76 and 83. Exhibitions : - Victor Hugo, exposition organisée pour commémorer le cent-cinquantième anniversaire de sa naissance, Paris, B.N., 1952, n° 384 (notice de Jean Prinet). - P. Georgel, Dessins de Victor Hugo, Villequier-Paris, Paris, Maison de Victor Hugo, (November 1971-January 1972), n° 72. - Dessins et ébauches de Victor Hugo provenant de la succession Hugo, Paris, galerie Lucie Weill, 1972, n° 8 (notice by Pierre Georgel). - Soleil d'Encre, Paris, musée du Petit Palais, 3 October 1985-5 January 1986, n° 126, ill. p. 111 (notice by Judith Petit). - Victor Hugo, l'homme océan, Paris, B.N.F., 2002, n° 171 of the catalog (not exhibited). Elected deputy of the Second Republic in 1848, Victor Hugo temporarily stopped writing and began to draw large sheets of paper: "For the first and last time, for the space of a few months, which did not go beyond the year 1850, Hugo transferred to drawing the creative powers that had previously belonged to literature" (P. Georgel, "Histoire d'un peintre malgré lui, Victor Hugo, ses dessins et les autres", in Victor Hugo, Œuvre graphique, by Bernadette Grynberg and Jean Massin, vol. II, t. XVIII, p. 24). Having gone into exile after opposing the coup d'état of Napoleon III, Victor Hugo eventually settled in Jersey where he acquired his residence at Hauteville House. In 1859, he began decorating his new home. He created decorated frames, titled and signed, in which he incorporated his drawings. The drawing and the frame together form a new work in its own right and become inseparable. Only four drawings of this size are known to be framed in this way: the first three, in public collections, were hung in the billiard room of Hauteville House: Souvenir des Vosges (Villequier, Musée Départemental Victor Hugo); Souvenir de la Forêt-Noire (Paris, Musée Victor Hugo) and Souvenir d'Espagne (Paris, Musée Victor Hugo). Ours, titled Souvenir de Belgique, must have been given by Victor Hugo to his son at the same time, and remains the only one in private hands today.Our drawing probably refers to Victor Hugo's solitary trip to Belgium during the year 1837. It is a memory of these northern plains, where a burg or a castle is enthroned in the middle of a bewitching mist. The day flees to give free rein to Victor Hugo's dark imagination: "If he were not a poet, Victor Hugo would be a painter of the first order... He excels in mixing in his dark and fierce fantasies, the effects of Goya's chiaroscuro with the architectural terror of Piranesi; he knows how to sketch, in the middle of threatening shadows, with a ray of moonlight or a flash of lightning, the towers of a dismantled burg and, on a livid ray of setting sun, to cut out in black the silhouette of a distant city with its series of spires, bell towers and belfries. "(see: Théophile Gautier, Souvenirs romantiques, Paris, Éditions Adolphe Boschot, Garnier, 1929, p. 102). The sheet must originally have been larger, for a fragment (16.7 x 10.9 cm) relating to the lower part of our drawing is preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (N.a.f. 13355), [M II 950].
