907 - Marcel, Paris Street Scene at the Place du Tertre in Montmartre, France, 20th C.

Marcel, Paris Street Scene at the Place du Tertre in Montmartre, France, 20th C. Gouache and mixed media on paper, signed Marcel at lower right and inscribed Alt-Montmartre. View across a busy square towards a row of houses whose shop fronts carry the painted signs AU CADET DE GASCOGNE, RESTAURANT and CAFÉ BAR; below them a red and blue striped awning. Between slender trees with pale green spring foliage a black street lamp, a green kiosk and a blue and red road sign. Numerous passers-by, set down in sketchy fashion in red, yellow, blue and violet, are distributed across the square. Strong colouring, the paint applied in a dry stroke. Good condition commensurate with age, browned, image 33x41.5 cm (HxW), mount, behind glass, framed, the frame knocked, overall 41.5x51.5 cm (HxW). The establishment named in the picture stands at Place du Tertre 4 in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, at the top of the Butte Montmartre, and can be traced there as a pictorial motif under this name from the 1930s at the latest. Since the late 19th century the square has been regarded as a centre for artists and is known to this day for the stalls of painters and caricaturists, for which one of the 140 coveted licences is required. From this milieu comes the genre of the decorative Parisian city view shaped by painters such as Édouard Cortès, Eugène Galien-Laloue and Antoine Blanchard, which frequently records earlier states of the city. A colourful souvenir of Paris for the wall.