5. Ernest-André Andreas, Houses in the Moonlight

ArtistErnest-André Andreas, French, Châteauroux[?] 1868–Auvers-sur-Oise 1899
Title, DateHouses in the Moonlight (Maisons au clair de lune), not dated
MediumPastel on paper
Dimensions22 13/16 × 18 1/8 in. (58 × 46 cm)
Inscriptions + MarksLower left: E. Andreas
ProvenanceSale, Thierry-Lannon, Brest, France, July 19, 2008, no. 450; sale, Thierry-Lannon, November 18, 2008, no. 24; sale, Thierry-Lannon, May 2, 2009, no. 376; sale, Thierry-Lannon, November 6, 2009, no. 15; [Christine Bethenod, Paris, until 2011; to Weisberg]; Yvonne and Gabriel Weisberg, Minneapolis
Exhibition History"Reflections on Reality: Drawings and Paintings from the Weisberg Collection," Mia, 2022–23
Credit LinePromised gift of Gabriel P. and Yvonne M.L. Weisberg, Minneapolis

Little is known about the career of Ernest-André Andreas. We do know that he was treated for depression by Dr. Paul Gachet, the physician who cared for the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh in 1890, during the last part of his life. Gachet’s ministrations to Andreas were most likely helpful for a time, but in the end the artist appears to have drowned in the Oise, a river that flows near Auvers-sur-Oise, the village near Paris where van Gogh ended his life.1

Figure 1Ernest-André Andreas, Les ciels de France, c. 1898, lithograph, 119.5 x 79.8 cm, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (AFF 18.226 LR123).

Andreas apparently began his art career in Rouen.2 Surviving works suggest that he made a living in Paris as an illustrator, often for magazines. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam holds illustrations commissioned by Andreas’s friend Eugène Murer (1841–1906), a painter, writer, and collector of Impressionist works. One item in the Murer collection is an early proof of a poster by Andreas advertising an exhibition of Murer’s art, titled Les ciels de France, or The Skies of France (fig. 1).3

As demonstrated in Houses in the Moonlight, also called Fishing Village under the Effect of the Moon, Andreas also took up pastel. The present drawing is a haunting image of a slightly overcast night scene where the shapes of the buildings and the water in the foreground are only just discernible. Andreas’s handling is so tenacious, it is hoped that similar pastels might one day be located.

GPW

Notes

  1. Andreas drowned or committed suicide in the Oise River on July 17, 1899, at age 31. See Paul Gachet, Deux amis des impressionnistes: Le Docteur Gachet et Murer (Paris: Éditions des Musées Nationaux, 1956), p. 164. From October 13 to November 16, 1896, Andreas exhibited at the Galerie du Théâtre-Salon, 20 rue Chaptal, Paris, with Eugène Murer (Hyacinthe-Eugène Meunier, 1841–1906). ↩︎

  2. For more details on Andreas, see https://publicationscalamar.wordpress.com/2020/01/12/andreas-illustre-anatole-france/ ↩︎

  3. An example of the poster with the completed lettering was sold by Worth Auctions, Freeville, N.Y., May 6, 2012, no. 7236. ↩︎