Albert Lebarque - The Blacksmith's Workshop

Albert Léon LEBARQUEQuatre-Champs (Ardennes), 1853 – Paris, 1939The blacksmith's workshopOil on panel24 x 18 cm (34.5 x 28 cm with frame)Signed and dated lower left “A. Lebarque / 1912”Beautiful painted wooden frame from the early 20th centuryVery good conditionPainter, sculptor and medalist Albert Lebarque lived in Aulnay-sous-Bois. He was a student of Eugène Carriere and is best known for his painted ceramics. Painter and sculptor, Lebarque is known in particular for having designed the medals for the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer du Nord. Aulnay sous Bois is linked to the history of the French railway industry. The Paris-Soissons line was the vector of railway development linking Paris to the north of France. In 1875, the Bondy Railway Company was created in Aulnay-les-Bondy, which would later become Aulnay-sous-Bois. In 1898, the Northern Railway Company began studying a direct link from Aulnay-sous-Bois to Verberie in order to open a simplified route for freight trains between the industrial basin of the North and Paris. In 1911, the Company for the Construction of Railway Equipment, known as "La Lilloise," was founded in Aulnay-sous-Bois. It specialized in the manufacture of steam locomotives for narrow gauges and employed more than two hundred people in its forging, boilermaking, and machine tool workshops. Lebarque exhibited at the Paris Salon from the 1880s onward and at the Universal Exhibitions. He exhibited at the Salons of 1880 a "Portrait of Mr. L ...", in 1885 a "Medallion", in 1888 a "Head of an oriental woman, earthenware" and in 1889 a genre scene entitled "In the spotlight". Labarque received a medal of honor at the Salon of 1914 and a bronze medal in 1920 for two medal engravings. This small painting signed by Albert Lebarque is close to his master Eugène Carrière in style with a very beautiful light and a pretty monochrome of colors. The subject is a small trade, that of blacksmith which developed in Aulnay-sous-Bois in the 1910s with the creation of "la Lilloise". It is dated 1912.