Jean Girard-Besancenot (1938-2012) -20thC Etching Mattress Makers At Notre Dame

Description

A fine, hand coloured etching from the mid 20th Century, showing two women in traditional French dress with white caps and aprons, quilting a mattress in the bright sunshine on the opposite bank of the Seine from the cathedral of Notre Dame. The artist has signed in plate and the etching has been presented in an attractive linen mount. On wove.

Condition

The condition is typical for a picture of this age including some discolouration.

Size

35.1 x 25.2cm (13.8" x 9.9")

Artist Biography

Jean Besancenot (24 September 1902 – 27 July 1992), born as Jean Girard, was a French painter, documentary photographer, and self-trained ethnographer, active mainly during the 1930s and 1940s in the French protectorate in Morocco.
He is mainly known for his illustrated book Costumes du Maroc with ethnographic information and portrait paintings of Moroccans in traditional costumes and other personal adornment, published first in French in 1942. Besides several editions in French, an English translation, Costumes of Morocco, was published in 1990. By 1953, when he published his second major work about select pieces of jewellery in Morocco, Bijoux arabes et berbères du Maroc, he had become Head of the Iconographic Service of the Moroccan Office of Information.
His work, composed of detailed descriptions, numerous black-and-white photographs, films, drawings and paintings, testifies to the history and aesthetics of Moroccan cultural heritage of the 1930s and 1940s, still little marked by Western influences. Because of ongoing reproductions and alterations in publications, by art galleries and fashion designers, his photos and paintings have been called "a form of public domain media for 'traditional' Moroccan dress".

Location

Paris, Paris, Île-de-France, France