Léon Herlant (1873-1968) - Portraits of Céline Thirifays - M - Lot 62

Léon Herlant (1873-1968) and the Autochrome.

Between Science and Art, Impressionism and Naturalism, an intimate look at an unknown and unpublished photographic work.

Goldfield Auction House is pleased to offer a rare and unpublished photographic work, imbued with mystery and color, dating from the golden age of Art Nouveau in Belgium.

Nearly a hundred autochromes and several works on paper will also be auctioned at this exceptional sale.

Léon Herlant (1873-1968), a man who was both a scientist and an artist. A doctor of medicine and pharmacology, professor and chairman of the Faculty of Medicine at the Université Libre de Bruxelles from 1930 onwards, Herlant was the perfect example of the spirit of his time: curious, methodical and sensitive to the beauty of the world.

In addition to his scientific work - including a book co-written with G. Billen in 1896, Micrographie des poudres officinales - Léon Herlant was a passionate Autochrome photographer. His photographs reveal an intimate view of nature and everyday objects.

His works include superb snow-covered landscapes, tormented studies of trees, and still lifes of great finesse, where colors burst forth in delicate light.

Among Léon Herlant's autochromes, one work in particular (lot 35) stands out for its profound mysteriousness. To this day, no one knows precisely what the artist intended to represent: the photographed subject eludes immediate recognition. This fascinating, singularly modern image may well be one of the very first experiments in color photographic abstraction.

Produced around 1910, this composition reveals a tangle of colored, almost microscopic forms that seem to open a window onto a world invisible to the naked eye. With his intuitive approach, Léon Herlant unwittingly anticipated some of the artistic research of the XXᵉ century, where photography emancipated itself from the simple reproduction of reality to explore sensory and imaginary territories. This isolated masterpiece testifies to a creative freedom rare at the time, when Autochrome was primarily used to document tangible reality.

Taking his experimental approach even further, Léon Herlant ventured a bold step: he took a microscopic photograph (lot 34) of an autochrome, seeking to reveal the intimate structure of this revolutionary process.

Through the lens of his microscope, the surface of the autochrome was revealed as a veritable mosaic of colored dots, forming a vibrant, tiny universe. The result is striking: this amplified vision seems to vindicate the great masters of pointillism - such as Théo van Rysselberghe, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac and Henry van de Velde - who, twenty years earlier, had sensed that color and light could be recreated by the juxtaposition of pure touches.

With this act, Léon Herlant does more than simply document a process technically; he offers a work in its own right, where science and art merge to reveal the hidden beauty of photographic material itself.

His scientific eye, combined with a rare artistic sensitivity, reminds us how Autochrome, beyond its practical use, is part of the great aesthetic adventure of the early XXᵉ century.

Full catalog available online.

Bidding now open.

Closing date for the sale is Saturday, May 10, 2025.

Lots will close at 13:00 (Brussels time).

ONLINE SALE ONLY.

It will be possible to bid online on DROUOT DIGITAL.

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