Théodore Jourdan (1833-1908) Study Of A Peasant

The specialist of bucolic life in Provence in the 19th century, the worthy heir of the master Emile Loubon. Concerned with capturing the attitude or movement, the true gesture of the peasant or the shepherd, Théodore Jourdan used to make numerous studies of his characters or his animals. We then find them on the large compositions and large formats of which he had perfect mastery, thus delivering to us these beautiful testimonies that are the departures in transhumance or the different pastoral and rural scenes. The work that is presented here is one of these studies, captured in the moment, it represents a peasant pulling on a rope, a stick in his hand. We can imagine that he is trying to make a goat or a pig move forward with difficulty, which gives him the particular expression of someone who is tired and resigned. The work, full of sensitivity and truth, is presented in a Louis XIV style frame with a gilded patina that measures 57 cm by 43 cm and 41 cm by 27 cm for the canvas alone. In its good original condition, it is signed lower right.

A student at the École des Beaux-Arts in Marseille, Théodore Jourdan completed his studies in the studio of Émile Loubon in Paris. He mainly painted sites in Provence and especially pastoral scenes where the representation of sheep of the local breed of Arles Merinos dominates. He made his debut at the Marseille Exhibition of 1859 with A Visit to Nazareth. He then exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français from 1865. He received a gold medal at the Universal Exhibition of 1879 in Sydney. He taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Marseille from 1874 to 1903. He bequeathed to his hometown, Salon-de-Provence, 19 large-format canvases as well as numerous drawings in exchange for a lifelong pension to be paid to his widow: these canvases are kept in a room that bears his name in the Salon and Crau Museum. Works in public collections: Aix-en-Provence, Granet Museum: A Herd in Provence, 1880. Marseille: Academy of Marseille: Portrait of Jean Roque. Museum of Fine Arts: The Passage of the Herd Return of a Herd in Provence Herd of Goats Portrait of a Bearded Man Tourcoing, MUba Eugène Leroy: Sheep at the Watering Hole, 1881 Salon-de-Provence, Salon and Crau Museum: Steamer unloading its sheep in Marseille; Shepherd and his sheep in the Crau d'Arles; Herd in the Crau; The Goatherd and his donkey; Herd of sheep in the vanguard of the herd; Before dawn on the mountain; Shepherd and his herd in the mistral; Goats on the road to Cassis; The Pumpkin Harvest in Provence; Leaving the Sheepfold; Shepherdess and her herd in Lourmarin; Goatherd leading her herd; Shepherd and her herd in the storm; Shepherd in the pasture: Leaving the Sheepfold; Herd drinking from a stream in the undergrowth.