Michel Jean Cazabon (1813-1888)

WORKS BY MICHEL JEAN CAZABON (Lots 8 - 12) Born of the Corynth Estate in North Naparima near San Fernando, Trinidad, Cazabon was the fourth child of François and Rose Cazabon, from a 'free-coloured' family whose origins were in the French West Indies and who moved to Trinidad from Martinique after 1789. Trinidad was then a Spanish possession until its capture by the British in 1797. Cazabon was educated in England from 1827 to 1830 and his first pictures date to shortly after his return to Trinidad in 1830 and before his departure to Paris to study art in 1837. He spent ten years in Europe, based in Paris and exhibiting regularly at the Salon du Louvre in the Musée Royal. He married Louise Rosalie Trolard in 1843 and returned to Trinidad ahead of his family in 1848 setting up a studio at 58 George Street, Port of Spain, and moving into a house at 9 Edward Street. His advertisements were followed by significant commissions of scenes in Trinidad for the wealthy planters Sir James Lamont and William Hardin Burnley and he gained a valuable introduction to the Governor, Lord Harris, and his circle of friends. His career then developed in response to the demands of the local market and he extended his repertoire to include portraiture, illustration and instruction. His professional output is dominated by watercolours with just a handful of oils recorded. He produced drawings for two subscription albums of lithographs published in 1851 (Views of Trinidad) and 1857 (Album of Trinidad) and contributed to series of lithographs of Demerara and Martinique. Having exhausted his clientele in Trinidad, Cazabon and his family moved to St. Pierre, Martinique in 1862 in search of new patrons but he appears to have had little success and returned disillusioned to Trinidad toward the end of the decade. In Trinidad he had difficulties resuming his career and died a forgotten figure in 1888. For further information on Cazabon's life and work see G. MacLean, Cazabon, An Illustrated Biography of Trinidad's Nineteenth Century Painter Michel Jean Cazabon, Port of Spain, 1986 and the exhibition catalogues Cazabon (Aquarela Galleries, Port of Spain, October-November 1986) and Cazabon, Trinidad's Hidden Artist (Art Gallery, Commonwealth Institute, London, July-August 1987)

Details

Michel Jean Cazabon (1813-1888)

A Bamboo Grove in Trinidad

signed lower left 'Cazabon', with inscription on the reverse 'on the Cascade Estate, Diego Martin Valley, Trinidad'; watercolour, unframed
12 x 8 7/8in. (305 x 227mm.)

Lot Essay

The Cascade Estate was one of three large sugar estates in the Diego Martín Valley all owned by the Scottish planter John Lamont. The scenery in the present watercolour otherwise compares closely with Cazabon's 'Bull-cart on the Maraccas River' (G. MacLean, Cazabon, An Illustrated Biography of Trinidad's Nineteenth Century Painter Michel Jean Cazabon, Port of Spain, 1986, p. 72, fig. 27), and the distinctive bamboo arches so typical of the local scenery recur frequently in his views in Trinidad (for example G. MacLean, op. cit., pp. 40, 1 (Maraval Dike), 72, 16 (Bamboos in the Macqueripe Valley) and fig. 26 (Bamboo Arches, St. Ann's)

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