Among the little-known museums that house the treasures of our heritage, the Petiet one, located in the town of Limoux, is devoted to works from the second half of the 19th century. It takes its name from a family of artists, descendants of general and baron of the Empire Pierre Claude Petiet, who acquired a large building which later became the eponymous museum.
Marie Petiet (1854 - 1893) is the most famous of these painters who left their mark on the town.
Marie Petiet began to paint at the age of 13, after having copied masters such as Velasquez, Rubens or Frans Hals, with the blessing of her father Léopold, himself an amateur painter.
She continued her training in Paris, in the studio of the painter Jean-Jacques Henner, who would profoundly influence a realistic style, where the precision of the motif in no way hindered the expression of great sensitivity. His works, like the laundresses, are very close to those of Jules Bastien-Lepage and Marie Bashkirtseff.
Marie Petiet regularly exhibits paintings at the Salon whose subjects are often borrowed from scenes of daily life in Aude. In 1886 she married Etienne Dujardin-Baumetz, himself a painter, and who from 1889 would become a deputy, senator and under-secretary of state for fine arts.
Marie Petiet's paintings are not lacking in beautiful originality, like the framing of "Guignol au village", deliberately neglecting the spectacle, which is only evoked by the furtive appearance of a puppet, to the benefit of the attitudes of child spectators.
Marie Petiet died in 1893, at the age of 38. At the start of the 20th century, her husband completed the initial collection of the Limoux museum with numerous works in the academic, realist, impressionist or divisionist style.
Musée Petiet de Limoux
Promenade du Tivoli
11300 Limoux
Tél: 09 63 68 34 54
In his art history lectures, Fabrice Roy combines the past with the present, in a poetic and playful evocation of the French 19th century...
