Élie MAINGONNAT

The tiercelet

Aubusson tapestry woven by the Atelier Legoueix.
bolduc Signed by the artist’s beneficiary, no. E.A.1
1942.

Elie Maingonnat directed the École Nationale des Arts décoratifs in Aubusson from 1930 to 1958, where he succeeded Marius Martin (who had already advocated limiting colours and using hatching), and where he had himself been a student. In addition to his responsibilities, Maingonnat devoted himself to creating cartoons: dense, animated vegetal motifs enlivened by a few animals—testimony to Limousin flora and fauna—revived the traditional theme of greens from the 17th–18th centuries.

Our cartoon was typical of Maingonnat’s work: the local fauna and flora (here, a small tereklet among the gentians, at the edge of a torrent) were depicted in a reduced range of grey-green colours that echoed one another, and were underlined by the browns of the rocks along the river.