Alphonse Defrasse And Albert Tournaire, Project For A Building Around A Column

DEFRASSE, Alphonse (1860-1939) / TOURNAIRE, Albert (1862-1958). Project for a building with two quarter-circle wings around a column surmounted by a statue. Watercolor. 21.5 x 51cm. Signed lower right: “A. Defrasse, A. Tournaire”. Framed. Defrasse, a pupil of Jules André, was second Second Grand Prix de Rome in 1882 (subject: a necropolis) and first Grand Prix in 1886 (subject: a palace for the Court of Auditors). Tournaire, also a pupil of Jules André, was first Second Grand Prix de Rome in 1882 (subject: a palace for the Council of State) and first Grand Prix in 1888 (subject: a palace for the Parliament). They were boarders together at the Villa Medici (Defrasse from 1887 to 1890 and Tournaire from 1889 to 1892). The writer Romain Rolland speaks of them in a letter to his mother in November 1890 (cf. Cahiers Romain Rolland, n° 8), they had taken part together in an evening given by Auguste Geffroy, then director of the French School of Rome. Defrasse and Tournaire were painted together by Georges Lavergne, with their colleagues Patouillard-Demoriane and Chaussemiche. In this painting, dated 1938 and kept at the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine, the four architects (who were then architects of the palaces and national monuments) discuss the plan of the Grand Palais.