George Sand – Dendrite Original Watercolor

Ruins, (around 1870)
Dendrite and watercolor on paper, 10 x 12 cm. Provenance: Franca and Pierre Belfond Collection Exhibitions: Compare to the exhibitions: Maison Balzac (Drawings by French writers of the 19th century, 1983), Sueños de tinta, 1993 (La Palmas de Gran Canaria), Museum of Romantic Life (George Sand , an artist's nature, 2004), at the IMC at the Berardo Museum in Lisbon, Ixelles Municipal Museum (drawings by writers, 2008), Schim Kunsthalle in Frankfurt (Turner, Hugo, Moreau, Entdeckung der Abstraction, 2008 ). All of these drawings come from an anthological album, prepared around 1875 by George Sand and later completed by his son Maurice, of around 47 drawings intended for his dear granddaughters Aurore and Gabrielle, the children of his son. She produced her first drawings in the purest romantic style at the time when her name was still Aurore Dudevant, later evolving towards abstract forms to which she gave the famous name “dendrites”. In her memories, recounted in “Story of my life (IV, 12), the novelist recounts how she wanted to earn her living by painting “ornamental flowers and birds, in microscopic compositions on snuff boxes and cigar cases” , but also fans and tea boxes, among others. She specified that she liked to create “portraits in pencil or watercolor in a few hours: “I grasped the resemblance very well, I drew my little heads quite a bit. ". In the light of her life, she practiced dendrites or watercolor crushing. This process consisted of crushing the color to produce figurative shapes. Here we have a touching testimony of this little-known artistic life of the famous novelist. A book is devoted to the graphic works of George Sand by Christian Bernadac, “Georges Sand, Drawings and watercolors, Belfond editions, 1992.”