HENRI MARTIN (1860-1943)

With its richly impastoed surface and luminous color palette, Martin’s Chèvre dans un champ de fleurs encapsulates the artist’s defining Neo-Impressionist style. After studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in his native Toulouse, Martin relocated to Paris and studied in the studio of Jean-Paul Laurens. At 23 years old, he received a medal of recognition at the Paris Salon in 1883, before traveling to Italy where he fell under the spell of Giotto and Masaccio. On his return to Paris, Martin embraced the Neo-Impressionist style that had been pioneered by Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. So well-received was his work that in 1889, the artist received a gold medal for his submission to the Salon.
Martin returned to the south at the turn of the century, moving to the village of La Bastide-du-Vert in the south-west. His work became permeated by the light and colors of the French countryside and he turned to pastoral scenes of rural harmony. It was here that Martin, with his distinctive form of looser, more spontaneous pointillist technique, reached its maturity. Works such as Bucolique (sold Christie’s, London, 25 June 2008, lot 497) feature a mother and her children set amid a verdant meadow, with the azure sea beyond. A group of goats graze nearby in this scene, one of which appears in the same position as the present work, suggesting that they are perhaps related. Chèvre dans un champ de fleurs passed from Martin to his son, Jacques Martin-Ferrières, in whose collection it remained until 1963, before it was acquired by the late owner in 1970.