OUR EXPERTS SPEAK / Brice Leibundgut, historian of Franche-Comté, discusses his specialty

Brice Leibundgut, 2022. © Brice Leibundgut.

5 QUESTIONS for Brice Leibundgut, specialist in Franche-Comté painters

A native of Doubs and an engineer from École Centrale de Paris, Brice Leibundgut is a historian of Franche-Comté, whose history he explores, recounts, and analyzes through his works, presentations, and conferences, covering literature – he is president of the Association des Amis de Louis Pergaud –, industry – he is a descendant of a line of watchmakers – and Art.

A member of the Bureau of the Robert Fernier Association, treasurer of the Société de l’Histoire de l’Art français, and a member of the board of directors of the Gustave Courbet Institute, Brice Leibundgut joined the UFE to specifically represent three Franche-Comté painters: Robert Fernier, Dagnan-Bouveret, and Gustave Courtois.

– How do you define your area of expertise? Why did you choose these three artists?

Brice Leibundgut. I first became interested in Robert Fernier, who extensively depicted the mountains of Haut-Doubs, my home region, in his paintings, as well as the traditions of this area, often with an ethnographic approach. I then extended my expertise to Robert Fernier’s two masters, Gustave Courtois and Dagnan-Bouveret, who were students of Jean-Léon Gérôme. Gérôme is one of the two reference painters of Franche-Comté, along with Gustave Courbet, whom Robert Fernier knew perfectly, having established Gustave Courbet’s Catalogue Raisonné and also being instrumental in the creation of the Gustave Courbet Museum in Ornans.

– What, in your opinion, are the qualities of a good expert?

1. B. L. A good expert must have a solid documentary foundation. First, one must know the art historical references for the artist, the places, and the period concerned. Furthermore, for the expertise of a painter, it is almost necessary to undertake the creation or updating of a catalogue raisonné. Also, the establishment of an artist’s biography or at least a detailed chronology is crucial. One must be able to place a work both within a painting trajectory and a life journey. Moreover, a good expert must have developed their own approach, certainly allowing for intuition and emotion, but above all for systematic analysis according to a detailed framework. I would add that a good expert must have doubts. They capitalize on their errors, which allows them to strengthen their knowledge of the artist.

– What is the specificity of the expertise of the painters you have chosen?

1. B. L. The three artists for whom I am an expert are figurative painters who worked at the end of the 19^th century and in the first half of the 20^th century. There is a certain geographical unity among these painters, a strong connection to Franche-Comté, and also a lineage. Robert Fernier was a student of Courtois and Dagnan-Bouveret. Furthermore, Robert Fernier managed to unite a group of colleagues around him: sometimes referred to as the École des Annonciades, named after the salon they created in the Annonciades chapel in Pontarlier. These three painters worked extensively for about fifty years each: they needed to make a living from their painting and, for that, to constantly renew themselves.

– What are the main difficulties you encounter?

1. B. L. One of the main difficulties is accessing archives. For Robert Fernier, his descendants preserve numerous documents and have deposited some of them at the Municipal Archives of Pontarlier. For Dagnan-Bouveret, there is a very rich collection at the Departmental Archives of Haute-Saône. However, very few documents are available concerning Gustave Courtois, except within the Dagnan-Bouveret collection. But a documentary corpus is not enough. It is also necessary to organize the information and make it usable: it is often by preparing conferences or symposia that I advance in my knowledge of these artists and structure my approach.

– What do you expect from the UFE?

1. B. L. First, that it offers us tools to share: this is already the case with, for example, the insurance contract negotiated for members. We could also collectively consider technical means, such as comparative studies on software for managing a Catalogue Raisonné. Beyond that, I hope that the UFE will be a place for discussion – an expert is sometimes alone with their questions – and a place for exchanging best practices. The CEDEA, which the UFE has joined, could also help broaden this circle of exchanges.
   

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