Oil on canvas mounted on strong framed cardboard

Dimensions : 45 cm x 54 cm

Signed lower right

Work presented at the & rsquo; Colonial Exhibition in Bordeaux 1920 (see label on the back)

Indochine, palanquin and his escort on a bridge

Joseph Gilardoni (1882-1961)

Painter part of & rsquo; French School painters travelers & rsquo; Indochina.

The palanquin, historical means of transport before the period of modernization started under the French colonial era.

Roland Dorgelès recounts the following facts :

Faced with Western expansion, old Annam is losing its archaism more and more : he can't resist modernism. The traveler who wants to visit Indochina at the beginning of the years 1920 will have to prepare to see an Indochina dominated by “this continual contrast of archaism and modernism”. However, the author must recognize the usefulness, the practical dimension of some modern introductions :

“How could one miss the palanquins of yesteryear when, at any moment, we see pass, in the dust of the roads, these amazing colonial buses crowded with natives whose bare feet come out everywhere, congaai with white neckerchief, old Annamese with umbrella, gold-toothed boys, all on top of each other, their baskets and their bicycles tied up on the gallery and along the step, so much so that the jew's harp ends up disappearing under this heterogeneous load and you think you see the travelers carrying the car like ants dragging a fly ?”

Roland Dorgeles, On the mandarin road, Exotics, Albin Michel 1925

He is quoted by Nadine André-Pallois “Indochina : a place of cultural exchange ?” – French and Indochinese painters (late 19th century – Twentieth century) published by the Presses of & rsquo; d & rsquo French School; Far East.

Joseph Gilardoni oeuvre Africanist

Sources : http://www.roussard.com/detaildicopeintre.html#Anchor-44867

https://data.bnf.fr/16569591/joseph_gilardoni/