Émile BERNARD (1868-1941) Study of Christ on the Calvary in the Church of Nizon (Pont-Aven) Circa 1888 Charcoal on paper Signed lower left 18 x 14.5 cm PROVENANCE : - Atelier Émile Bernard - Clément Altarriba Collection - Private collection, Paris EXHIBITION : - Musée départemental du Prieuré, Saint Germain en Laye, Le chemin de Gauguin: genèse et rayonnement, October 1985 - March 1986, catalogue no. 182 (label on back) BIBLIOGRAPHY : - WILDENSTEIN Georges, Paul Gauguin, catalogue raisonné, 1964, p.126, n°328 - Musée départemental du Prieuré, Saint Germain en Laye, Le chemin de Gauguin: genèse et rayonnement, 1985 SIMILAR WORKS : Émile BERNARD, Bremen, Kunsthalle, 7 February - 31 May 2015 Paul GAUGUIN, Christ vert, 1889, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (Brussels). NOTE : Armed with a small sum of money, a haversack and his painter's paraphernalia, Émile Bernard left his father's house in April 1886 and it was on foot, and alone, that he travelled to Armorique. It was a revelation. The sketches piled up in his boxes. He admired the magnificent Breton granite calvaries. Following the advice of Claude-Émile Schuffenecker (1851-1934), whom he had met shortly before, Émile Bernard finally arrived in Pont-Aven to meet Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), eighteen years his senior, who received him with indifference. In the early summer of 1888, Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin met again in Pont-Aven, thanks to the intervention of Vincent Van Gogh (1852-1890). The two men became close friends. There were many similarities between the work of the young painter Émile Bernard and that of his elder, including the Calvary in the church at Nizon, a few kilometres from Pont-Aven. In 1889, Paul Gauguin painted The Green Christ on this subject. The painting is now in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (Brussels). Émile Bernard, a devout Catholic, had a particular taste for sacred themes, no doubt the result of a lost faith rediscovered through contact with Brittany. His Yellow Christ, dated around 1886, painted during his first stay in Brittany or perhaps later, bears witness to this. Paul Gauguin's Yellow Christ, dated 1889 and kept at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo), is three years later. In the summer of 1889, Émile Bernard returned to Brittany, this time to Saint-Briac-sur-Mer, from where he corresponded with Paul Gauguin until 1891. A certificate of authenticity from Madame Béatrice RECCHI-ALTARRIBA, Émile BERNARD's granddaughter, will be given to the buyer.