View of Paris: The Hotel de Ville banks and the statue of Etienne Marcel under Snow
View of Paris: The Hotel de Ville banks and the statue of Etienne Marcel under Snow Watercolor Signed E. Galien Laloue, circa 1910-1920 Appraisal by Mr Noé Willer. (Will figurate in the tome 2 of the "catalogue raisonné" of the work of Galien Laloue)
Etienne Marcel was provost of the merchants and the one who use to control the city of Paris from 1355. He bought the « maison aux piliers » to house the municipal power in 1357. But when in 1358 he opposed the Dauphin and raises the population of the Island City against the future Charles V. These alliances with Charles the Bad and the British are destroying him and he was decapitated at the Porte Saint-Antoine 31 July 1358.
Eugène Galien Laloue was born on December 11, 1854 in Montmartre, the oldest of eventually nine children. Young he had decided to become a painter. He exhibited for the first time in 1876 at the Museum of Reims, showing Le quai aux fleurs sous la neige (Flower Market Along the Seine Under the Snow). The following year he exhibited for the first time at the annual Parisian Salon, showing En Normandie (In Normandy) as well as two gouaches. He preferred executing gouaches since they were less time consuming as his oils and brought comparable prices. He had a reclusive personality, which also may explain the reasons behind his numerous pseudonyms as Eugène Galien Laloue was particularly adept at establishing several identities, since over the course of his career he worked under three pseudonyms: J. Lievin, E. Galiany and L. Dupuy. While these are three confirmed names that he used, there is the possibility that he used other names as well. Even his name “Galien” is questionable, since on occasion he spelled it with one “l” and on his birth certificate it is spelled “Gallien”. Despite preoccupation with the reclusive nature of this man, he depicted Paris and the surrounding landscape with his cool palette; in doing so he became another recorder of popular Parisian life. He balanced his architectural interest in Paris with several landscape views and was an equally if not more proficient draughtsman. He preferred the solitariness of his studio and thus did not paint his works entirely on-site. Unlike many other artists as well, he did not like to travel and many of his views of other cities or countries were inspired by postcards and photographs, an increasing tendency with many artists as photography became a more established method of use. During the first two decades of the twentieth century he also exhibited at Dijon, Orléans, Versailles, Roubaix, Saint Etienne, Bordeaux, Monte Carlo, Hautecoeur, among several other cities. He had become very popular with both French and especially American artists and continued to paint the same scenes of Paris throughout his career. He died on April 18th, 1941.
