Brief Report
This small painting on an F4 size artists' board is characterized by an unusual perspective and a dramatic surface structure. Having made a brisk sketch in black pencil or black chalk on the white ground (figs 5, 7), Marquet used a brush, a palette knife and, it seems, his fingers to execute the painting: intensively, impasto and wet-in-wet (figs 4, 8, 9). Numerous traces of smearing testify to this treatment of the paint. The picture was doubtless painted en plein air. Round pressure marks with a nail-hole at their centre bear witness to the use of typical spacers (taquets bois) for the transport of the work while it was still damp (fig.10). An interesting feature is the narrow black margin applied to the picture after the work was finished, marking its completion, like the signature, which was also applied to the dry paint (fig.6). The picture has been cropped by about 17 mm on the right-hand edge, and the varnish also seems to be a later addition.
Albert Marquet
Outskirts of Paris, 1899, oil on artists' board, 23.8 x 31.3 cm, WRM Dep. FC 671
Albert Marquet
born on 27 March 1875 in Bordeaux,
died on 14 June 1947 in Paris
Further illustrations:
Fig. 02
Verso
Fig. 03
UV fluorescence
Fig. 04
Raking light
Fig. 05
IR reflectogram
Fig. 06
Detail, signature
Fig. 07
Detail, IR reflectogram; stroke made by a soft pencil
Fig. 08
Detail, raking light, traces left by palette knife
Fig. 09
Detail of the paint layer under raking light, showing taces of smearing made by an object or finger(?)
Fig. 10
Detail, top left-hand corner, impression left by a standard commercially available spacer (see illustration), designed to keep the still wet picture apart from another picture or wrapping
Fig. 11
Detail, verso, format stamp "4" half covered by a sticker (arrow)
Fig. 12
Paint-layer, application wet-in-wet, microscopic photograph (M = 1 mm)
