Georges TIRET-BOGNET (French, 1855-1930)
Montmartre en 1880
Watercolour over pen and ink with black chalk
Signed and inscribed lower right, 'Montmartre en 1880 - G Tiret–Bognet -
La Maison de Chaume d’Henri IV et de Gabrielle - La Maison de Berlioz'
Image size: 31 x 70 cm (12 x 27½ in)
Framed size: 51 x 92 cm (20 x 36 in)
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Hector Berlioz and the Muse of Montmartre

Louis Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), the French Romantic composer, lived in the house in the centre of this painting, with his English wife, Harrriet Smithson and their son, Louis, from 1834 to 1837. Located on the corner of Rue St Vincent and Rue du Ment-Cenis in Vieux Montmartre, it was here that he composed Harold en Italie (1834), the opera Benvenuto Cellini (1836), and one of the works for which he is best known, the requiem Grande Messe des Morts (1837), (the other being La Symphonie Fantastique).

Hector Berlioz by Émile Signol (1832)
©  Académie de France à Rome; and in reproduction
by Paul Siffert 1907 by Le Musée Hector Berlioz

Berlioz, like the composer Erik Satie and many others, enjoyed the relative peace and tranquillity of Vieux Montmartre, the highest point in the city that afforded spectacular 360 degree views of the French capital and surrounding countryside. And it is indicative of his reputation that, nearly 50 years after his departure in 1837, the house was still a place of 'pilgrimage', a popular subject for artists, and still commonly referred to as 'The House of Berlioz'.

By the time Georges Tiret-Bognet, the painter of this delightful 1880 watercolour of Berlioz's house (which also shows the hunting lodge of King Henry IV behind), Montmartre was enjoying its heyday. By this time this hilltop district on the north side of Paris had been transformed from the tranquil 'backwater' of Berlioz's day to an area brimming with vitality and creativity and a veritable magnet for artists, intellectuals, writers and musicians, who flocked in their droves to experience the area's infamous bohemian and decadent lifestyle: "In this bizarre land swarmed a host of colourful artists, writers, painters, musicians, sculptors, architects, a few with their own places but most in furnished lodgings, surrounded by the workers of Montmartre, the starchy ladies of the rue Bréda, the retired people of Batginolles, sprouting up all over the place, like weeds. Montmartre was home to every kind of artist." (Félicien Champsaur, French writer).

Situated just outside the city limits, free of Parisian taxes, and no doubt encouraged by the fact that the local nuns made wine, Montmartre had quickly became a popular drinking area and, by the end of the century, a centre of decadent entertainment that openly embraced and encouraged a hedonistic, indeed debauched, lifestyle, as exemplified by the famous cabaret clubs of the Moulin Rouge and Le Chat Noir. It thus provided a fertile environment for would-be artists, attracting the likes of Vincent van Gogh, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Maurice Utrillo and Raoul Dufy, all of whom (and many others) who lived here.

At the peak of its popularity in the 1890s, Montmartre was renowned both for the bohemian lifestyle it offered and also as the epicentre of 'modern' European artistic expression - and all, somewhat ironically, set within the shadow of the towering Basilica of the Sacré Coeur which was then under construction (1875-1914) and which provided a façade of propriety to the hedonistic 'goings-on' taking place below.

Despite living largely in abject poverty, Montmartre still provided its resident artists with a sufficiently attractive, companionable and artistically challenging milieu not only to feature frequently in their works but, in combination, to have created an 'explosion' of artistic expression that was to change the future direction of European art.

Best wishes

CHRIS NOEL-JOHNSON
ALBANY FINE ART

T: +44 (0) 1367 870961
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