Louis Welden Hawkins #14

Last week-end , my friend Gérard, the antique dealer, was coming from Britanny as there was an antique market organized in Paris and he had loaned a spot to dispatch what he had to sell. I met him on Saturday morning at the market and after had a quick look at what he was selling. He had brought the usual old Quimper plates, about half a dozen Gallé pieces , mainly lamps and jars beautifully made. There were also a couple of paintings and I started to get nervous. "Do you still have THE Hawkins ?" I asked him, not seeing that painting I have been fascinated by since I had been admiring it two years before in his shop. Of course here it is, he said pushing aside a piece of cardboard.. The Hawkins indeed.. still too expensive for me but at least I could still have another look at it. .. Louis Welden Hawkins was a painter from the end of the XIXth century aknowledged for being a symbolist and also as being the French link to the Preraphaelites. Some of his works are displayed in the Musée d'Orsay, I learned to know him and his paintings after my first encounter with "les Meules" in Gérard's shop. His paintings are of those who make me dream and ravish my attention. No need for a tv set when you have a masterpiece at home... Here is another example of Hawkins work :

LWH, originally uploaded by zapcomix.

Gérard brought me out of my daydreaming saying that he had to consider selling the painting to me on a fifty months basis ... I asked him to come home for dinner. He showed up around 8pm and we ate a TBone steak I had grilled in the ovenand drank a vintage Burgundy red wine, something which we describe in French as "Jesus wearing corduroy pants"- yes E* I repeat myself here but it was so good- to express the quality , the length and the structure of a perfect wine. This was really the case with this 1996 Pommard bottle. I had put on the nuggets boxset on the cd player and "little black egg" from the Nightcrawlers made both of us smile with content.