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Date: 1854-1926

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Description: Painted in 1881.

signed Ch Angrand and dated 1881 (lower left)

oil on canvas

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Dimensions: 55 by 46cm., 21 5/8 by 18 1/8 in.

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Provenance: Pierre Angrand (the artist's nephew)
Jacques Rodrigues-Henriqués, Paris (acquired from the above, 7th October 1959)
Thence by descent to the present owner

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Exhibited: Paris, Le Salon d'hiver, 1881-82
Rouen, 27^e Salon Municipal des Beaux-Arts, 1882, no. 14
Paris, Société des jeunes artistes, 1885, no. 6
Rouen, Musée des Beaux-Arts, L'Ecole de Rouen, de l'Impressionnisme à Marcel Duchamp, 1996, no. 12, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

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Published: Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov, The Early Works of Charles Angrand and his Contact with Vincent Van Gogh, Utrecht, 1971, p. 15

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Notes: Le Gardeur de dindons was painted in 1881, five years prior to L'après midi d'été à la grande jatte, Seurat's manifesto to divisionism. Angrand did not paint more than ten canvases per year and destroyed many of his early works, including a larger version of the present composition, keeping only those which he felt best reflected his artistic aims. The audacious subject and startling technique of Le gardeur de dindons puzzled Angrand's contemporaries but were analysed with insight by Antoine Darcel in Le Journal de Rouen of 17^th october 1882 : "ce n'est pas le gris, c'est le blanc qu'affectionne monsieur Angrand. Son Gardeur de dindons, bien qu'il prête à rire par la façon japonaise dont le sujet est traité n'est point exempt de qualités...Le terrain, vert pâle moucheté de blanc est bizarre : les dindons ne semblent pas à leur place, mais nous serions étonnés si monsieur Charles Angrand, revenu des étrangetés des prétendus impressionnistes, n'arrivait pas à quelque chose, car il voit juste."(quoted in Claude Pétry and François Lespinasse, L'Ecole de Rouen, de l'Impressionnisme à Marcel Duchamp (exhibition catalogue), op. cit., p. 62). The luminous shades of green, the simple planes and the precise and distinct brushstrokes of the present work anticipate the scientific principles of neo-impressionism championed by Angrand's friend Seurat. While he always distanced himself from all official artistic or political movements, Angrand's influence in leading the path from impressionism to neo-impressionism and divisionism was recognised by his peers, including Van Gogh, who, in a letter dated 25^th october 1886, expressed his desire to exhange two of his views of Le Moulin de la Galette, against an early Angrand painting Dans la basse-cour.