Władysław Jahl (1886–1953), Valley of the Wolves, 1933
Oil on canvas
81.5 x 116 cm / 63 x 98 cm
Unsigned; title and date on the reverse.
Minor damage to the frame.
The painting comes from the artist’s studio.
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The painting depicts the famous “Valley of the Wolves”—an estate purchased in 1807 by the writer François de Chateaubriand, who wrote many of his works in that very palace. In 1816, Chateaubriand fell into serious financial trouble, which forced him first to rent out the estate and, a year later, to sell it—it then passed into the hands of the de La Rochefoucauld family and remained in their possession for nearly a century. In 1914, it was purchased by Henry Le Savoureux, a “alienist” (a term used at the beginning of the century to describe doctors specializing in mental illness), who established a sanatorium on the estate. In 1929, Dr. Le Savoureux founded the Chateaubriand Association, which still has its headquarters on the estate today. Together with his wife, Sophie Lydie Plekhanov—the daughter of a Russian and Soviet publicist, philosopher, and revolutionary, and one of Lenin’s “comrades-in-arms”—he hosted artists and writers at the estate. Among them, due to Sophie’s background, were also many artists from Eastern Europe who were staying in France either temporarily or permanently, including Marc Chagall, Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, and most likely Władysław Jahl himself—a possibility suggested not only by the fact that he moved in the relevant artistic circles but also by the subject of the painting on display: the “Valley of the Wolves” park, surrounding the estate, appeared in the works of many artists who were guests of the Le Savoureux family.
