George Sand – Original Drawing

Saynètes, (around 1870)
Graphite on paper. Four small scenes of characters in silhouettes, 1.5×4 cm, 2×5.5 cm, 3×7 cm, 2.5×10.5 cm. The art of being a grandmother, collective games in Nohant. A separate piece, graphite on paper, 3.3 x 4.4 cm. Walking scene in Nohant, representing Georges Sand under a parasol, his two granddaughters, Aurore and Gabrielle, two dogs and two characters, including a Punchinelle, with a castle in the background. Provenance: Franca and Pierre Belfond Collection Bibliography: Reproduced in “Georges Sand, Drawings and watercolors, Belfond editions, 1992. Numbers 276 – 279 – 274” by Christian Bernadac. 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.