André Albarède (1895-1984) Bergerac, The Arcades Of The Hôtel Peyrarède

André René ALBARÈDE
(Paris 1895 – Paris 1984)
Woman sewing under the arcades of the Henri IV house in Bergerac – July 1940
Gouache
H. 29 cm; L. 23 cm
Signed lower right, located, dated

Born in the 14th arrondissement of Paris and died in the 16th, André Albarède seems to have ties in the southwest since a very large majority of his works are made in Aveyron and in the Tarn. Son of a painter whose corpus we do not know, he may have trained alongside him and developed his work following post-Impressionism.

Our very pretty gouache was made in the summer of 1940 in the free zone, under the cool arcades of one of the most beautiful residences in Bergerac. Long called “château Henri IV” or “château of the kings of France”, this house with its charming corner turret was actually the Hôtel Peyrarède, named after an important family of the town in the 16th and 17th centuries. Louis XIII would have stayed there when he came to take over the city from the hands of the Huguenots in 1623. As for his father, Henri IV, there is no guarantee that he set foot there during his Perigord visits. Today this house is the setting for the tobacco museum, linked to the importance of this culture in the Dordogne basin in the 19th and 20th centuries. Albarède here gives this medieval alley a very colorful look, bathed in a pretty blue sky and animated by this woman sewing. The layouts and the contrasts, just like the point of view are interesting and make it possible to discover a new artist who frequented the Dordogne.