Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Herminie Waternau's Gouache Studies of Paris

Herminie Waternau (1862 - 1913), Courtyard of the Auberge du Cheval blanc in 1898
gouache and watercolor, Carnavalet Museum, History of Paris
Herminie Waternau (1862 - 1913) painted detailed architectural scenes around Paris using a muted palette of watercolor and gouache. She achieved convincing textures with a combination of transparent and opaque watercolor.

I found these images at the Paris Musées website, which recently released a trove of over 100,000 high-resolution images online. Since they're in the public domain, you can download the large files and look at the details.

Herminie Waternau (1862 - 1913), Port-Royal Hospital in 1909, 

gouache and watercolor, Carnavalet Museum, History of Paris

You can search for works by your favorite artists or discover lesser-known people.

Herminie Waternau (1862 - 1913), 34.4 x 25.4 cm (13 x 10 inches)
gouache and watercolor, Carnavalet Museum, History of Paris


According to Wikipedia, "She died of a heart attack together with her maid Ermunde Serre, and their bodies were discovered by authorities when neighbors were alarmed by their absence."

Herminie Waternau (1862 - 1913), Courtyard of the
Petit Séminaire de Saint-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet in 1908.
gouache and watercolor, Carnavalet Museum, History of Paris
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Paris Museums Collection Online
Article about the release of images in Smithsonian Magazine

7 comments:

  1. What a treasure trove! This Paris-phile will be feasting her eyes! Thanks for the link. But I have questions: how does one die of a heart attack along with someone else? Hmm...

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  2. Double heart-attack, what???

    But wonderful works, the first one particularly successful!

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  3. Carbon monoxide poisoning? Or one person getting upset at the death of the other?

    What fabulous stone she achieved. I wonder how long it took her to do one of these?

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  4. I wonder if Herminie Waternau knew Eugene Atget, who was photographing Paris architecture around the same time she was creating these wonderful paintings. Atget's black and white photos are very compelling and evocative but these paintings bring a whole new immediacy to these old and most likely now lost Parisian locations.

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  5. Never heard of her or seen these images before ,hopefully there will be a renewed interest in her work , many similar qualities here I see in your own work James , can't see what the size of the works are though .

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  6. Great content, thank you for sharing!

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  7. Wow, great textures in these paintings. Thanks for sharing! Always nice to discover a new woman artist from that era, there doesn't seem to be a lot of them.

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