As every year for the past three years, the Limoges Museum of Fine Arts is offering a Christmas gift to its visitors, a few days before the holidays. Inside the package, a “transient” exhibition to help them discover last year’s acquisitions.
This “formula” makes it possible to present the year’s acquisitions (purchases, donations or bequests) which enrich and complete the museum’s collections. “Because a museum is not something fixed,” says François Lafabrié, the director.
A piece in the course
“In 2022, the acquisitions had a 17th-18th century coloring; those of 2023 focused on sets of enamels from the middle and second half of the 20th century; this year, it is a set of paintings and a drawing by Eugène Alluaud and a pastel by Léon Detroy that we are presenting in a room, which is an integral part of the museum’s itinerary,” he explains.
“The descendant of Eugène Alluaud contacted us to find out if certain works interested us. There were a lot of them, so we made a selection which enriches the works that the museum already has,” underlines François Lafabrié.
Until April 25, visitors will be able to discover a little more about Eugène Alluaud… But who was this painter? Born in Saint-Martin-Terressus, he comes from a family of porcelain collectors who grew up in the entourage of Adrien Dubouché.
Trained in Paris, at the Académie Julian, Alluaud developed a deep link with the Creuse valley: on an artistic level, he worked intensely on the motif while he maintained a number of friendly relations evolving on the site. He therefore met artists there, notably Léon Detroy with whom he became friends, and of course the impressionist Armand Guillaumin in 1893.
The Creuse valley
His home in Crozant became the meeting place for the many artists of the valley, who he entertained with parties, dinners and meetings.
Among the typical Creuse landscapes that the artist painted, there is La roche du confluent (before 1913), a newly acquired work “with a still very impressionist touch”.
“While Overcast Sky under the Pyrenees (around 1925) presents a vacation site by the artist, in a surprising and strong palette reminiscent of the style of Cézanne,” explains the museum director.
The most surprising painting is entitled The Blonde Negress. This is the illustration of an eponymous poem by Limousin artist Georges Fourest (1864-1945), published in 1909 and which was a real success. This painting, which has nothing to do with his usual production, “takes up, in a picturesque vein imbued with a still colonialist outlook, the verses of Fourest and places his model in an exotic setting”, recontextualizes François Lafabrié.
Finally, the very beautiful portrait of Marcellewife of Eugène Alluaud, testifies to the ties of friendship between the Alluaud family and Léon Detroy, whom he frequented a lot at their “Villa Roca”, in Creuse.
The “BAL des debutantes” is on view until April 25 at the Limoges Museum of Fine Arts. It is open Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. as well as Saturdays and Sundays from 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.; and every 1st Sunday of the month, from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
