Camille Martin 1861-1898

Born in Nancy, the son of a sculptor and an embroiderer, Camille Martin naturally turned to the arts and trained at the École des Beaux-Arts of the city, where he studied under the painter Louis-Théodore Devilly. There, he met Émile Friant and Victor Prouvé, who became friends and close collaborators. Winner of the Jacquot Prize in 1881, he joined the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, entering the studio of Edmond Lechevallier-Chevignard.

Martin began exhibiting in 1882 at the Salon de Nancy, presenting paintings imbued with the naturalism of Jules Bastien-Lepage, which drew the attention of the critic Roger Marx, with whom he formed a deep friendship. Between 1884 and 1891, he participated almost every year in the Salon des Artistes Français. His encounter with the painter Hokkai Takashima in 1885 sensitized him to Japanese art, which strongly influenced his style. He focused on depicting the Vosges landscapes, experimenting with techniques such as enamel and ceramics in collaboration with Gustave Schneider, and also worked with etching, drypoint, aquatint, poster design, stained glass, leather, and pyrography on wood.

In 1893, for his first participation in the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, he collaborated with Prouvé and René Wiener to present nine highly ornate bindings in embossed and patinated leather, strongly influenced by Japonisme. The works attracted critical acclaim and gave this new Lorraine school international recognition. Commissions poured in for the three artists, including the creation of the binding for L’Histoire de Paris. Turning more decisively toward the decorative arts, Camille Martin focused on the Objects d’Art section at the Salon, collaborating again with Prouvé in 1894, and then exhibiting his Japan-inspired creations under his own name from 1895 to 1898.

When he died in 1898 from a heart condition that had affected him for several years, Camille Martin received many tributes, including from Roger Marx:

“He was among the first to advocate the application of beauty to utility, and must still be regarded as one of the finest craftsmen of the decorative renaissance, which attests to the vitality of our provincial genius.”

In 1899, an exhibition was held in his honor at the Poirel Galleries in Nancy before his studio was dispersed.

Dated 1895, this painting is among the few of Camille Martin’s works currently traced, most of his painted corpus being held at the Musée de l’École de Nancy, which dedicated a major retrospective to him in 2010. With a soft and fluid brushstroke combined with a precise drawing reminiscent of Friant, the artist engages here in a certain intimacy, portraying a young girl in a wealthy bourgeois interior filled with decorative objects. The model, seated on an elegant Louis XV-style wooden chair, appears caught in a moment of reverie or melancholy, having paused her delicate embroidery work. With a touch of humor, Camille Martin placed directly in front of her, on a Louis XVI-style guéridon, the open-mouthed head of a Saxon aquamanile in the shape of a lion. This curious gilt-bronze object, likely dating from the late 13th century, alongside a cylindrical Art Nouveau stoneware vase, demonstrates the painter’s keen interest in decorative arts. This interest is further confirmed by the presence at the center of the composition of a majestic red vase adorned with lizards, possibly made by the Daum glassworks. All these elements seem to justify the compliments given by Auguste Rodin in a letter to Camille Martin on 14 July 1892: “Best wishes to you my dear artist who has taste, a rare thing."