130. Charles Milcendeau, Portrait of a Vendean
| Artist | Charles Milcendeau, French, Soullans, Vendée 1872–Soullans, Vendée 1919 |
| Title, Date | Portrait of a Vendean, 1897 |
| Medium | Charcoal |
| Dimensions | 6 5/16 × 4 3/4 in. (16 × 12 cm) |
| Inscriptions + Marks | Lower left: CM 97 |
| Provenance | [Galerie Chantal Kiener, Paris, until 2016; to Weisberg]; Yvonne and Gabriel Weisberg, Minneapolis |
| Credit Line | Promised gift of Gabriel P. and Yvonne M.L. Weisberg, Minneapolis |
Charles Milcendeau was born Edmond Charles Théodore Milcendeau in Soullans, a fertile area on the Atlantic coast, on the western edge of France. In the mid-nineteenth century it had hundreds of mills and hosted monthly livestock fairs. This was the rural environment in which Milcendeau was raised; in around 1905 he returned to Soullans and lived in a traditional earthen house known as a bourrine. Today it is home to the Milcendeau Museum.
This figure, with his penetrating gaze and firmly set jaw, is undoubtedly one of the many people from the region whom the artist persuaded to sit for a portrait. Milcendeau must have known his models intimately, for they are drawn with insight and warmth. This sheet bears no mention of the sitter’s identity, but since Milcendeau drew from life and not from his imagination, we can assume that he captured the vital qualities of the figures he set to paper.
GPW