Ambroise Vollard: Alfred Chauchard

"The Cowherd" by Constance Troyon

"An imposing figure among collectors was that of [Alfred] Chauchard, the owner of the 'Grands Magasins du Louvre,' 'L'Empereur de Blanc,' as his friends called him. I never, it is true, had occasion to approach him, but I knew him so well from the confidences of his habitual guests, that I cannot resist the temptation to let him figure in these recollections.

'Chauchard, you beat everything! God made the seasons, and it would need a miracle to change them; but you can displace them or unite them at will!' This was the sort of thing that greeted him in his dining room, where flowers and fruit brought from all the countries of the sun turned winter into summer.

This chorus of praise, however, could not always stir the host from his study. His thoughts perhaps were busy with the Louvre, that he was thinking of enriching with some fresh jewel: 'La Vache,' by Troyon, Théodore Rousseau's 'Chataigniers,' or Millet's 'Angélus.'

Or another problem might be haunting this noble man. Determined to leave his habitual guests an ineffaceable memory of himself, he had planned that at their last, supreme gathering around his bier, each of them should have the privilege of carrying one of his pictures at the head of the funeral cortège. To his legatee, the Minister Leygues, would fall as by right Millet's 'Angélus,' which, on account of the price he had paid for it - four millions of our francs of today - seemed to him incontestably the finest of his pictures. But his other friends too much each have a picture assigned to them, in strict accordance with rank, to carry on the day of the funeral.

Left to himself again, Chauchard, with photographs of his friends in his hand, would start reapportioning for the umpteenth time his Corots, Meissoniers, Duprés, Bastien-Lepages, Cabanels, Courbets, Detailles, without ever solving the riddle: Who was to carry the Corot? the Cabanel? At last one day, as he swore aloud in his perplexity, a parrot, flapping its wings on a perch, let fall in a nasal voice a phrase it had heard its master say many a time in a rage: 'Chauchard, you're a bloody fool!'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Recollections of a Picture Dealer" by Ambroise Vollard.)

Ambroise Vollard: On Painters

"Self-Portrait"
by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

"When painters get together they are apt to talk painting. Conversations of this sort were frequent in the 'Cellar.' K.X. Roussel, for instance, would lead off with: 'Monet is a Greek.' (Myself) 'What do you mean by that? 'I'm speaking of the purity of his art. Monet looks at nature with the ingenuous eye of a contemporary of Praxiteles.'

'I love Renoir's landscapes,' Odilon Redon would put in. 'When Renoir paints trees, you know at once what sort of trees they are. In a tiny little painting they've got at Durand-Ruel's, there's a hedge of dog-roses:  one would love to sit beside it. The whole landscape seems familiar to one. Now, Monet's triumph is in laying one tone beside another. But if ever one of these days the colours in his pictures begin to alter...' Here Redon would stop short, as though embarrassed at having gone so far. For his modesty did not often allow him to pass judgment on a fellow artist.

Delacroix's name having come up in conversation: 'Did you know him, M. Redon?' I asked. 'Only by sight. I came across him now and then; once, I remember, at a ball at the Hotel de Ville.' 'How is it possible,' exclaimed someone, 'to like both Delacroix and Ingres? Delacroix so full of fire, and Ingres so cold!' 'Ingres cold?' retorted Besnard. 'Ingres is fire itself, controlled passion seeking to conceal itself.'

When Degas was dining with me one night in the 'Cellar,' I repeated this saying of Besnard's to him. 'Did you know Ingres, M. Degas?' 'I went to see him one evening with a letter of introduction. He received me very kindly. Suddenly he was taken with a fit of giddiness [vertigo], and flung out his arms as though seeking something to hang on to. I had just time to catch him in my arms.' 'I thought to myself: 'What a fine subject for a Prix de Rome painting! Ingres in the arms of Degas! The last representative of a dying epoch borne up by the herald of a new one!'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Recollections of a Picture Dealer" by Ambroise Vollard.)

Ambroise Vollard: "Poppy Field"

"Poppy Field" by Vincent Van Gogh

"Battle of Huningen" by Detaille

"There was another visitor who came back every day towards evening. He would begin by casting a glance at the window, where Van Gogh's 'Poppy Field' was blazing, and then come into the shop and walk round. After a bit he would begin to talk. He was unwearied in his enthusiasm for the 'Poppy Field.' One day I missed him at his usual hour. He did not turn up again till several days later.

'I haven't been able to come all this time. My wife has just had a little girl. We are already thinking of her future, and we have decided, by way of dowry for her, to buy things that are bound to go up in value - pictures, for instance.' Instinctively, I glanced towards the 'Poppy Field.' My man followed the glance. 'If I had money to spare,' he said, 'that painting would have been in my house by now. But, you see, I have a child on my hands now. I must take life seriously. Fortunately, I have a cousin, a professor of drawing of the City of Paris, who will be able to advise us.'

It was some time before I saw my man again, and then one fine day he reappeared with a portfolio under his arm. 'It's done,' he announced. He tapped the portfolio, 'The little one's dowry is in here!' He took out a 'Fantasia' by Detaille. 'My cousin managed to get this for me for only fifteen thousand francs. In twenty years' time it will be worth at least a hundred thousand.'

About twenty-five years later, the man with the Detaille watercolour came into my shop in the rue de Martignac. 'Now,' he said sadly, 'the time has come to part with it. My daughter is getting married.' I asked him if he remembered my Van Gogh exhibition, and the poppy picture that he appeared to like so much. 'That's a long while ago,' he said. 'Fortunately I kept my head. What would a picture dealer give me nowadays for that?' 'Well, my friend, you'd get more than three hundred thousand francs.'

'What about my Detaille, then?' 'Your Detaille! The Musée du Luxembourg had what was considered his masterpiece - the 'Battle of Huningen' - taken up to the garret, and even the rats won't look at it.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Recollections of a Picture Dealer" by Ambroise Vollard.)

Ambroise Vollard: Studio in the Morning/Afternoon

"Summer" by Renoir

"Fantin, Degas and Renoir were all alike in this really. With all of them it was always, studio in the morning, studio in the afternoon. I shall never forget the astonishment of a celebrated art critic, who had said to Degas: 'I'll come and see you at your studio.' 'Yes,' said Degas, 'but at the end of the day, when it's dark.'' Which shows how little Degas could bear to be interrupted in his work.

Now, Renoir did not mind visitors. Their presence did not prevent him from going on with his painting. Even at the end of a year's work, when Renoir took a holiday it was still a case of studio in the morning, studio in the afternoon, except that on fine days the studio was the open country.

As for Degas, during the rare holidays he allowed himself, he usually went to Saint-Valery-sur-Somme to his friends. He cared for the country only as a place to walk in. He was to be seen marching up and down the garden paths, his eyes protected by large dark spectacles, and taking the greatest care to avoid the flower beds. As is well known, he hated flowers on account of their perfume.

I surprised him one day when I had gone to see him in the midst of painting one of those landscapes that used to stagger Pissarro père. The painter was working with his back to the window. 'But, M. Degas,' I said, 'seeing the truth with which you represent nature, who would suppose that you do it by turning your back to her?' 'Oh, M. Vollard, when I'm in the train, you know, I do now and then put my nose out of the window.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Recollections of a Picture Dealer" by Ambroise Vollard.)

Ambroise Vollard: The Manet

The variant on Manet's "Execution of Maximilien"
referred to in the anecdote

"A famous picture of Manet's was one of the variants of the 'Execution de Maximilien.' Mme. Manet's brother considered this variant inferior because Maximilian, and the generals executed with him, did not appear to him as 'finished' as in the other painting. So the replica was taken off its stretcher, rolled up and put away in the lumber room under a cupboard.

One day it occurred to Mme. Manet's young brother that perhaps after all there was something to be done with this picture, considered unsaleable till then. The sergeant loading his rifle was cut out, framed and sold [to Degas]. What remained of the picture was rolled up again, and when I had asked Mme. Manet about any of his work that might be available, she showed it to me saying, 'What a pity Edouard took all that trouble with it. What a lot of nice things he could have painted in the time!' 

I concluded the bargain, but how was I to get the voluminous fragment to the repairer? I could not think of taking the omnibus with this sort of stovepipe in my arms. I sent for a cab. Seated inside it, with my Manet on my knees, I had to be perpetually on the lookout to preserve it from the dangers of the journey, holding it upright like a church taper when my cab threatened to get wedged between two other vehicles. In this way I got safely to Chapuis' workshop - the picture repairer who also worked for Degas.

When Chapuis had unrolled the picture, he said, 'But, M. Vollard, surely this is the picture the 'Sergeant' was taken from, that I restretched for M. Degas? He was told the rest of the picture had been destroyed by accident.' When Degas saw the repaired canvas in my shop, he recognized it at once as having belonged to the same canvas as his 'Sergeant.' There were no words found to express his indignation but, 'The Family again! Beware of the Family!' Then recovering himself, he took his stand between me and the picture, and with his hand on it by way of taking possession, he added, 'You're going to sell me that. And you'll go back to Mme. Manet and tell her I want the legs of the sergeant that are missing from my bit, as well as what's missing from yours. I'll give her something for it.'

Then by way of protest he had the 'Sergeant' and the fragment of the 'Execution de Maximilien' he had bought from me pasted onto a plain canvas, of the supposed size of the original picture, the blanks in the canvas representing the missing part. 'The Family! Beware of the Family!' he would repeat incessantly, whenever he brought his visitors to look at this restoration."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Recollections of a Picture Dealer" by Ambroise Vollard.)

Ambroise Vollard: At Dumas' Union Artistique

"A Walnut Tree in the Thomery Meadow" by Alfred Sisley

"M. Alphonse Dumas had opened a picture gallery, which he called the Union Artistique. It was not with a view to making money. He merely wanted to balance the expenses of his own painting by the profits to be made out of selling other people's work. But he was particularly anxious not to be taken for a dealer.  'You see,' he said, 'I come of a family of artists. It's not a shop I've opened, it's a salon. I am a gentleman serving as intermediary between the artist and the customer.' It was with him that I eventually obtained a 'paid job' as a picture dealer.

One day, M. Dumas brought a large portfolio to the Union Artistique. He opened the portfolio and took out Manet's gorgeous watercolor, 'Olympia,' then a roll containing the original drawings for 'Le Chat Noir et le Chat Blanc,' a state of the colored lithograph 'Polichinelle,' several admirable drawings in red chalk and a dozen sketches of cats. 'I think that's all,' he said. But on his shaking the portfolio there fell out a delightful study of a woman, painted on parchment. 'How my friends would have ragged me if they had seen that!. . . Now make it your business to get rid of the lot for me, at the best price you can.'

Good things must have some mysterious force of attraction in them. Although, following the instructions of my chief, I only showed the Manets with the greatest discretion, in a day or two they were all sold. Only one thing vexed Dumas. The customer who bought 'Le Chat Noir et le Chat Blanc had insisted on our relieving him of a Sisley.

'And I had sworn,' said Dumas to me, 'never to buy an Impressionist. We must hope you'll find an opportunity of passing this Sisley on to some chance customer. Anyway, do your best!' So one afternoon I resolved to pull off a bold stroke. I removed the Debat-Ponsan that was in the window and put the Sisley in its place. Five minutes later it was sold. This was not because the Impressionists were in favour (the year was 1892), but it just happened like that.

Dumas' first words when he came back were: 'Look here, Vollard, you'll have to go to the collector who foisted it on us and ask him to take his picture back at a low price.' 'But I've sold it,' I said, 'to a stranger. He talks of coming back some day to see if we've got anything else of the same kind.' 'Of course,' Dumas said, 'you told him the firm doesn't deal in that sort of stuff, and it was only by chance...' 

Life in these surroundings was beginning to be more than irksome.

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Recollections of a Picture Dealer" by Ambroise Vollard.)

Ambroise Vollard: Renoir and Degas

"Leçons de Danse" by Edgar Degas

Ambroise Vollard writes: "It has sometimes been said that Degas and Renoir, with their dissimilar natures, were not made to understand one another. As a matter of fact, although Degas disliked the fluffy texture of some of Renoir's paintings ('He paints with balls of wool'), he would exclaim at other times as he passed his hand amorously over one of his pictures, 'What a lovely texture!' 

On the other hand, there was no greater admirer of Degas than Renoir, although secretly he deplored Degas' desertion of the art of the pastellist, in which he was so entirely himself, for that of the painter in oils. Notwithstanding their esteem for one another as artists, Renoir and Degas did, however, manage to quarrel. It happened in this way. 

In the painter Caillebotte's will, Renoir was bequeathed any one of the pictures in his collection, at the artist's choice. He eventually decided upon one of the 'Leçons de Danse' by Degas. But Renoir soon tired of seeing the musician forever bending over his violin, while the dancer, one leg in the air, awaited the chord that should give the signal for her pirouette. One day, when Durand-Ruel said to him: 'I have a customer for a really finished Degas,' Renoir did not wait to be told twice, but taking down the picture, handed it to him on the spot.

When Degas heard of it he was beside himself with fury, and sent Renoir back a magnificent painting that the latter had once allowed him to carry off from his studio - a woman in a blue dress cut low in front, almost life-size. I was with Renoir when the painting was thus brutally returned to him. In his anger, seizing a palette knife, he began slashing at the canvas. Having reduced the dress to shreds, he was aiming the knife at the face: 

'But, Monsieur Renoir!' I cried. 'You were saying in this very room only the other day that a picture is like a child one has begotten. And now you are going to destroy that face!' His hand dropped, and he said suddenly, 'That head gave me such a lot of trouble to paint! Ma foi! I shall keep it.' He cut out the upper part of the picture. That fragment, I believe, is now in Russia.

Renoir threw the hacked strips furiously into the fire. Then taking a slip of paper, he wrote on it the single word 'Enfin!' put the paper in an envelope addressed to Degas, and gave the letter to his servant to post. Happening to meet Degas some time after, I had the whole story from him, and after a silence, 'What on earth can he have meant by that 'Enfin!'?' 'Probably that he had quarrelled with you.' 'Well, I never!' exclaimed Degas. Obviously he could not get over his astonishment."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Recollections of a Picture Dealer" by Ambroise Vollard.)