René Buignet (1888-1915) The Medici Fountain, Luxembourg Garden, Two Signed Watercolors

René Buignet (1888-1915) 
La Fontaine Médicis, Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris
Each one signed lower right
watercolor on paper
size of each : 28.5 x 21 cm
In the same mount and framing : 42 x 60 cm

The Fontaine Medicis in the Jardin du Luxembourg is known as one of the most romantic places in Paris. It is so named because it was originally the grotto of the Luxembourg, commissioned in 1630 from the Florentine engineer Thomas Francine by Marie de Médicis, then widow of Henri IV. The Queen of France and Navarre wished to find the atmosphere of the nymphaea and fountains in the Boboli gardens in Florence. It found its current appearance after being redesigned in the 19th century.

René Buignet chose to represent two aspects of the Fontaine Medicis in an original way, firstly the back of the building, the most secret part and the straight alignment of the basins of the basin.
The effects of light and colour are not the same of course, but their combination recreates the magic of the place.

René Buignet was born in Le Havre on 1 October 1888, a student at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, he is also documented as a student of Jules Despras at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs. Unfortunately he was drafted as a corporal into the French army in May 1914 and died of typhoid fever in the military hospital in Bar-le-Duc on 7 January 1915. His name is inscribed on the monument to the dead at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
This tragic fate and premature death explains why so few works and traces of the young artist have been preserved, even though his talent is clearly visible in these two watercolours.