D. Charles FOUQUERAY (1869-1956). - Lot 121

D. Charles FOUQUERAY (1869-1956). Paris School of Fine Arts. Naval painter, illustrator and poster artist. 1918-1921-1922 From Marseille to Java (Egypt - Red Sea and Arabian coasts - Ceylon - India - Straits Setlements - Singapore). Travel diary aboard the Messageries maritimes' Porthos. Pencil and watercolor on paper (a few blank pages. Tear at edge of one drawing). Italian format (Dimensions: 11x17 cm). Bound in full glazed calf with half-bound spine decorated with gold foil (rubbing and wear from use). Off Marseille. Aboard the Porthos (VIII: The promenade deck, the music room, the smoking room, a ball...) The Aeolian Islands. Stromboli. Messina. The Strait Port Said (IV) Egypt-Alexandria (II) Boats on the Nile Cairo Suez and Suez Harbour (II) Jubal Strait Gulf of Aqaba (III) Jebel Mousa Mount Sinai Disraeri Akaba(III) El Wadi (III) Yambo El Bahr(II) Red Sea: Jeddah (VIII) Jebel Zukkur (II) Hodeidah (II) Moka (II) Djibouti (V) Minikoi - Il Coraligene Colombo (V) Allagalla Calcutta (V) Ajunta Benares (XIII) Dancers of Delhi (II) Le Pot au noir (IV) Singapore (XI) Provenance: In the family by descent. Charle Fouqueray, a painter in the French Navy, embarked on January 5, 1921 aboard the Porthos - a Messageries maritimes ship and sister ship to the ATHOS. Originally intended for the Marseille-Saïgon-Haïphong line, it was later assigned to the Far East line. Comprising over a hundred drawings, this notebook is a marvelous illustration of Fouqueray's talent as a colorist. The painter's concern for accuracy obliged him to recompose the notebook, regularly breaking the chronology. In this way, Fouqueray enlarged the illustrations of his 1921 crossing by inserting watercolors produced as early as 1918. The drawings, all signed with a few exceptions, provide an enchanting narrative: Fouqueray obviously sketches the life of the liner in 1st class, the Music Room, the elegance of the women "the Lady of Shanghai" on the Promenade Deck, the Fumoir... It is at once an account of navigation, that of the sailor who regularly records degrees of longitude and latitude in pencil, fascinated by port activity - cotton landing, the bell pepper market, the Chinese pottery trade - and its boats (cargots, feluccas...); that of the illustrative painter who regularly records degrees of longitude and latitude in pencil, fascinated by port activity - cotton landing, the bell pepper market, the Chinese pottery trade - and its boats (cargots, feluccas...).); that of the painter-illustrator who strives to capture every nuance of sea and sky, from clarity to the exacerbated colors of the "Doldrums" off the coast of Singapore; that of the ethnologist, fascinated by Pilgrims in the Holy Land, rituals in India and the drapery of dancers and Brahmins; that of the humanist who, as he travels the straits, islands and Red Sea, summons up the words of Virgil, Homer and the Holy Scriptures. A jewel of color and humanism.