Henri MARTIN (1860-1943) - Lot 184

Henri MARTIN (1860-1943) Woman with child Oil on canvas. Signed lower left. 42 x 44 cm (Canvas slightly warped, a little sketched) This is a preparatory work for one of the figures in the quadriptych painted by the artist for Doctor d'Herbécourt's Paris apartment at 93, avenue de Wagram. This eminent physician, having met the Art Nouveau painter and decorator Henri Bellery-Desfontaines (1867-1909) at the Hôpital de la Charité (now the Centre Universitaire des Saints-Pères), commissioned him to embellish his dining room. The commission included the creation of a mantelpiece and an entire set of furniture, as well as woodwork and paintings, all of which are now housed in the Musée de l'Oise in Beauvais. Henri Rapin created the woodwork, as well as the stained-glass door, while Henri Martin was responsible for the four murals, Paysage de bord de mer Les Fiancés, La Traite de la chèvre and Déjeuner champêtre. It is to this last composition that our drawing of a young woman holding a child can be traced.