Brief Report

The canvas, at first fastened only provisionally, and presumably to some rigid base, was probably primed very thinly in white by the artist himself without any sizing. The area to be primed and subsequently painted was previously marked out by Petitjean with a dark border (fig. 8). On the ground, he then drew a relatively wide-meshed and not altogether regular grid in the bottom half of the picture, before transferring the simple outlines of the motif in deep-black pencil (fig. 9). The use of a grid suggests an independent pattern in the form of a preliminary drawing or photograph. Remarkably, Petitjean began the colour execution of this Pointillist depiction with the application of partial underpainting of whole areas in the respective local colour (fig. 11). As the process continued he tended to move from paler to darker, and from cooler to warmer shades. The different colours were applied generally at different times during the painting process. With a preliminary dabbing application, the painter loosely filled out the areas in a basic colour, placing the dabbed outlines along contours he had already drawn. These were only covered over with paint in a subsequent phase. The dominant grid-lines in the area of the water he covered over, after the first dark blue applications, with pale blue and in a white which is now off-white, as the stimulation with UV-radiation stimulation also shows (fig. 5). In this case he waited till it had dried, but otherwise he applied successive colours wet-in-wet. The colours were as a rule used unmixed; mixtures can only be found with white and black. Areas where the dabs of paint are clearly demarcated on or next to each other alternate with others where they were applied wet-in-wet. In the foreground area, and in the reflections of the houseboats to the left and the boat on the right, a number of corrections or uncertainties in the course of the painting process can be discerned (fig. 12). Here the paint applications are in a number of layers, in some cases not dabbed on, but applied with strokes of the brush, often wet-in-wet. In the reflections of the houseboats the painter removed already dabbed-on applications over sizable areas in order to re-compose this section of the picture.

Hippolyte Petitjean
The Bridge, c. 1890, oil on canvas, 65.7 x 100.5 cm, WRM Dep. 816

Hippolyte Petitjean

born on 11 September 1854 in Mâcon,
died on 17 September 1929 in Paris

Brief report with complete data as downloadable pdf-file

Further illustrations:

Fig. 02

Verso


Fig. 03

Raking light


Fig. 04

Transmitted light


Fig. 05

UV fluorescence


Fig. 06

IR reflectogram with mapping of the visible grid and underdrawing lines


Fig. 07

Detail, signature


Fig. 08

Edge of picture, dark border, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 09

Underdrawing lines in charcoal or pencil, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 10

Detail, grid lines covered by artist himself with applications of light-blue paint (arrows)


Fig. 11

Pink partial underpainting layer, followed by applications
of white and yellow paint, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)


Fig. 12

Detail, pentimento, medium-blue paint was covered (arrows)