Bibliography
Philippe Kaenel (ed.), Marius Borgeaud, exb. cat. Lausanne, Fondation de l’Hermitage, La Bibliothèque des Arts, 2015: n. 65.
Bernard Wyder, in collaboration with Jacques Dominique Rouiller, Marius Borgeaud. L’homme, l’œuvre, 1861-1924, Lausanne, La Bibliothèque des Arts, 1999: n. 78.
René Berger, Edith Carey, Jacques Monnier et alii, Marius Borgeaud: poète de la lumière et magicien de la couleur, Denges, Editions du Verseau, 1993.
Marius Borgeaud spent the months from spring to autumn in the Breton village of Rochefort-en-Terre every year from 1909 to 1919. In 1911 and 1912, he devoted a series of paintings to his friend Ernest Houal’s small pharmacy in the village. Here, a mother and daughter are sitting quietly, waiting for the pharmacist to mix their remedies from the powders stored in the jars on the shelves. The sunlight streaming in through the window casts shadows, picking out the white of the women’s traditional coiffes and the man’s shirt collar and illuminating a dark, confined space.
Another of Borgeaud’s friends, Dr. Victor Doiteau, was a keen collector of his work. In 1923, Doiteau published an article on his friend in the journal Æsculape, recounting an anecdote about the pharmacy: “A missionary bringing the Gospel to the Blacks in the heart of wild Africa brought the pharmacist, a relative of his, some peaceful stuffed animals and negro weapons. The pharmacist, finding the curiosities took up rather too much space, consigned them to his attic […] where Borgeaud found them. He immediately understood the admirable use to which the fauna and weapons could be put: he suggested his friend should decorate the pharmacy with them”. A stuffed snake can indeed be seen above the shelves.
Doiteau likewise recorded that the pictures on the wall were advertisements for a powder “unrivalled for fattening pigs and calves”. This unexpected touch of modernity in a traditional scene of Breton village life roots the painting in the real world, breaking with the folklore clichés fashionable since the Romantic era.