View of Dieppe by Jacques-Émile Blanche — March 2022

The Société des Amis de Marcel Proust et des Amis de Combray had long preserved the trace of Jacques-Émile Blanche within its collections, in the form of an original engraved plate of an early portrait of the young Proust, drawn by the artist in 1891. No canvas by the master, however, had ever featured there — a gap all the more noticeable given that Blanche remains one of the closest witnesses to Proust’s youth. In January 2022, the Société remedied this absence by acquiring a work depicting Dieppe, now hanging on the walls of the museum in Illiers-Combray.

Painted in 1904 by Jacques-Émile Blanche, Dieppe: Terrasse du restaurant du Casino avec au fond le château belongs to a twofold history: that of the painter, whose ties to Normandy reached back to childhood, and that of Proust, who stayed in Dieppe in August 1895, just steps from the terrace depicted in the canvas. This acquisition thus illustrates, in a single stroke, the friendship uniting the two men and the fondness the author of the Recherche held for Normandy.

Overview

Dieppe: Terrasse du restaurant du Casino avec au fond le château is a canvas by Jacques-Émile Blanche (1861–1942), painted in 1904. It depicts the terrace of the Casino restaurant in Dieppe, alive with seaside activity, with the medieval castle overlooking the town in the background. The painting dates from the period when Blanche, having left his villa at Le Bas Fort Blanc, was living at the Manoir du Tot in Offranville and returning regularly to Dieppe to paint scenes of everyday life.

The friendship between Jacques-Émile Blanche and Marcel Proust lies at the heart of the significance of this acquisition. As early as 1891, Blanche had drawn a portrait of his young friend; in 1892, he painted the now-famous portrait of him. It was in Dieppe, in the summer of 1895, that their worlds converged in the same place: Proust was staying at 32 rue Aguado, in the villa that Madeleine Lemaire rented for the season, together with Reynaldo Hahn. It was in November 2021 that the Société learned that a first Dieppe canvas by Blanche was coming up for public sale; the bidding soon rose beyond the funds available. Informed shortly afterward that a second canvas depicting Dieppe was being offered by a gallery, the Société seized the opportunity. Thanks to the contribution of Claire and Bruno Saillant, the acquisition was swiftly concluded.

Authors and Contributors

Jérôme Bastianelli, president of the Société des Amis de Marcel Proust et des Amis de Combray, writes the introduction and recounts the circumstances of the acquisition.

Jane Roberts, a specialist on Jacques-Émile Blanche and author of the artist’s catalogue raisonné, devotes her text to the deep ties that bound the painter to Dieppe: his Norman family origins, his summer sojourns, and the circle of notable figures he gathered there each season.

Emily Eells, professor at the University of Paris Nanterre, examines Marcel Proust’s relationship with Dieppe: his documented stays, the prose poem “Sous-Bois,” composed at Madeleine Lemaire’s home in the summer of 1895 and published in Les Plaisirs et les Jours, as well as the traces the Norman town left in Proust’s work.

Éric Unger oversaw the editorial coordination of the brochure.

Contents

• Introduction, by Jérôme Bastianelli
• Jacques-Émile Blanche and Dieppe, by Jane Roberts
• Proust, on the Dieppe Side, by Emily Eells

Bibliographic Information

• Format: paperback
• ISBN: 978-2-492318-15-3
• Price: 5 €
• Publisher: Société des Amis de Marcel Proust et des Amis de Combray
• Legal deposit: March 2022