View of the Cascade of the Gorge near Allevard

(Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld)

The gorge near Allevard lies on the Isère River where it flows down towards Grenoble, in the Dauphiné region of the foothills of the Alps. Bidauld had traveled through the Dauphiné in 1803 and made several wash drawings en plein air, as well as a finished painting, Vue des Glaciers des Glezins, prise à Allevard, exhibited at the Salon of 1804 (no. 28). In addition to the exhibited work he made several preparatory oil sketches there and a superb Paysage Montagneux avec Torrent, signed and dated 1803, that was bought by Louis Bonaparte, future King of Holland then inherited by his wife, Queen Hortense, and installed at her Château of Arenenberg where it can be seen today. Our view may be compared with a painting of some rapids with a small cascade now in the Musée Duplessis, Carpentras, and given by Suzanne Gutwirth to the early 1790s, when the artist was still in Italy. Stylistically both pictures, painted on a similar scale, share much in common and the recent appearance of our work, identified in the artist’s hand as having been painted at Allevard, would suggest a slightly later date for the Carpentras painting.

Bidauld has created a counterpoint of powerful movement and placid calm by balancing two diagonals: the massive tree-covered hill intersected by a path that dominates the scene, and the sweeping river cascading from behind a large rock placed just left of center. The foaming torrent sprays in all directions as it falls into the fast-flowing river below, the artist having applied flecks of brilliant white against other whites to obtain the effect of churning water. The sun lightly strikes a sandy mound at the lower left and illuminates the more distant hills visible beyond another valley, where a stream winds down a gentle slope. Unlike many of Bidauld’s Italian views, the sky takes up only a small part of the overall composition, visible above the hills behind but cut off by the tree-covered slope that rises beyond our view on the right.

Matthiesen Gallery & Stair Sainty Matthiesen, ‘The Gallic Prospect’, 1999