Paul JOUVE (1878-1973) Peacocks in a garden,... - Lot 28 - Daguerre

Paul JOUVE (1878-1973) Peacocks in a garden, Algiers, circa 1920 First study for the desk. Oil on plywood. Annotated and signed on the back Governor's Palace. 81 x 99 cm Bibliography Paul Jouve, animal painter and sculptor, 1878-1973, op. cit. p. 105. Solicited as a former resident of the city of Abdel-Tif to decorate the new Summer Palace, residence of the Governor General of Algeria, Paul Jouve returned to Algiers at the beginning of 1921. Placed on the heights of Mustapha, on the outskirts of the city, a lot of work had to be done to fit out the old residence in a comfortable and sumptuous way and sumptuous the old Turkish residence which, before the conquest of Algeria by the French armies in 1830 belonged to Mustapha el Keil, minister of the dey of Algiers. As early as 1913, the plans for the reconstruction of the Summer Palace had been requested from the architect Gabriel Darbéda [] Once the work on the new buildings was completed, the idea was to enrich certain rooms with a cycle of frescoes. The first decoration works were ordered in 1920 by Governor General Jonnart and continued by Governor General Violette. Governor General Violette. It was a question of covering the large bare spaces by going beyond the traditional oriental vision traditional oriental vision that had prevailed without authenticity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries[] To decorate the apartments on the first floor To decorate the apartments on the first floor, the architects were able to recommend artists from the young Algerian school who, each in their own way, while the splendour of the North African landscape, had been able to avoid the trap of false romanticism and to understand the characters and romanticism and understand the characters and customs of the inhabitants of Algeria. Fernand Antoni, Léon Carré, Marius de Buzon and Paul Jouve were the names of those chosen by Governor Jonnart [] With the exception of the first one, the three other artists were former residents of the city Abd-el-Tif, who had who had been able to create an authentic "Algerian" style [] Paul Jouve had been commissioned to paint a large mural in the presidential Paul Jouve had been commissioned to paint a large mural in the presidential office, entitled Peacocks in the Gardens, inspired by the fountain of the small basin of the Jardin d'Essai. This was an exceptional decorative work, with a very colourful composition and a wealth of and its richness of tones responded perfectly to the decoration of the festival hall, the luminosity of the eyes of the peacocks' ocellated feathers seemed to prolong the incredible brightness of their finery on the full arch of the the vaults with their preciously inlaid decoration of mosaics and coloured stones. The mural paintings by Léon Cauvy and Paul Jouve are innovative and show a new style for orientalist inspiration. They move away from the realism of Dinet, from the representations of Muslim life by Léon Carré and the Kabyle processions by Marius de Buzon. Jouve is in charge of the President's study, a large square room whose walls he decorates. On one of the walls he paints Peacocks in the gardens. The painting being in the summer palace, will not be used the fountain with the lions' heads which is in the center of the painting that we present but this element will be on the opposite wall, where the fountain will be, this time, decorated with heads of mouflons.