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Gustave Bourgain(French, 1855-1921)Lavage du Pont (washing the deck) 144.8 x 210.8cm. (57 x 83 in.)
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Find your local specialistGustave Bourgain (French, 1855-1921)
signed 'G. Bourgain' (lower left)
oil on canvas
144.8 x 210.8cm. (57 x 83 in.)
Footnotes
Provenance :
Mrs.Rachel Beer.
Christies - 22nd. July 1927, lot 47, bought Wallis, 5 guineas.
‘Suffren’ was an illustrious name in the annals of the French Navy and it was used on several notable warships of the nineteenth century. Named in honour of Admiral Pierre André de Suffren de St. Tropez (1726-88), the first vessel to bear his name was completed in 1831 – as one of the last pure sailing ships in the French fleet – and she remained in service until about 1860, her last employment being in the Baltic during the war with Russia in 1854-55. After peace was concluded in 1856, the decision was taken to withdraw many obsolete vessels – including the ageing ‘Suffren’ – and her replacement was laid down in the naval dockyard at Cherbourg on 1st April 1866. Launched on 26th October 1870 and finally completed for sea on 5th August 1873, the new ‘Suffren’ displaced 7,800 tons and was one of three ‘Océan’ class ‘central battery ships’ which were screw-powered but also sported a full ship-rig on three masts. Impressively armed and designed as an ironclad with a powerful ram bow, this class – when introduced – appeared to be the acme of modern invention. In fact, technology overtook her quite early in her career and although she excelled at ‘showing the flag’ across the world wherever there were French interests to be protected, she rarely fired a shot in anger. Re-rigged as a barque later in her life, she was finally withdrawn from service in July 1897 and scrapped soon afterwards.
This impressive large-scale work, whilst purporting to show a facet of everyday life aboard a ‘modern’ ironclad, nevertheless depicts that time-honoured sailors’ chore of ‘swabbing’ the decks. In order to prevent men slipping on wooden decks due to salt and spray, countless generations of sailors were put to work on a daily basis cleaning and drying the deck planks with ‘swabs’, a type of mop formed from the rope ends of worn-out rigging etc. It was a back-breaking job and universally loathed by all those men obliged to do it.
Although Bourgain painted genre, landscapes, still lives and Orientalist scenes (including two pictures of Napoleon in Cairo), he seems to have had a penchant for painting sailors of the French Navy in quasi-humorous situations.
There are recorded pictures by him showing a sailor having his photograph taken by a lady photographer, sailors drinking outside a quayside inn and perhaps most amusing of all, a watercolour depicting a sailor having his hair cut by his fellow matelots below decks on the 'Austerlitz' (sold Bonhams, 14th. January 1999, lot 116).
Saleroom notices
This picture was exhibited at the Paris Salon, 1890, no. 314.