Paul Jamot (1863 - 1939) - Twilight in Flanders, Circa 1900

"Paul Jamot (1863 - 1939) - Twilight in Flanders, Circa 1900
TWILIGHT IN FLANDERS, CIRCA 1900

Paul JAMOT (1863-1939)
24.5 x 41 cm (37 x 55 cm with frame)
Oil on canvas
Signed lower right

A former student of the École normale supérieure, agrégé de lettres (1887), he was then a member of the École française d'Athènes (1887). He explored the Argolid and the Sperchios valley. Between 1888 and 1891, he led excavation campaigns in the Valley of the Muses in Thespia. He collected numerous inscriptions, including the Hesiod stele. He published a travelogue: In Greece with Charalambos Eugénidis.
He became curator of national museums, member of the Institut, commander of the Légion d'honneur, honorary curator of the Louvre museum, and director of the Musée de Reims from 1927 to 1939.
He bequeathed to the city a rich collection of paintings, represented by Corot, Carpeaux, Courbet, Delacroix, Maurice Denis, Forain, Ingres, Picasso, Renoir, etc. and valuable objects, as well as to the Louvre, Luxembour and Carnavalet museums. A room in the Musée d'Orsay bears his name.
In September 1913, he organized the room at the new Reims Fine Arts Museum and, in 1938, the artistic part of the Notre-Dame inauguration festivities, as well as the Trésors de Reims exhibitions at the OrangeriedesTuileries and the Reims Fine Arts Museum. Paul Jamot imposed only one condition on the City of Reims, ending his will with this sentence: "Finally, I bequeath to the Musée de Reims the jewels I had made for my wife by René Lalique; I ask that they be placed in the room where the paintings bequeathed by me will be grouped, as close as possible and, if possible, below the portrait of my wife by Ernest Laurent". This wish was not respected.
Paul Jamot was also the author of several collections of poetry:Préludes(1912),Des voix dans la nuit(1918),Sacrifice du soir(1929).
He is buried in Paris, in the Montparnasse cemetery, beneath the monument he had built by the architect Auguste Perretet-Maurice Denis, for his wife Madeleine Dauphin-Dornèsin 1913.Albert Besnard painted a pastel portrait of her.
Ernest Laurent painted a portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Jamot, and a portrait of Madame Paul Jamot, née Madeleine Dauphin-Dornès (1864-1913). Both paintings are kept at theMusée d'Orsay.
In 1922, the sculptor Paul Paulin created a bust of Paul Jamot, also in the Musée d'Orsay.

Ref: 49QGG32CDB