La Belle Époque au Canal: pastels by Marianne Petiti and photos taken by her friends.
During the summer months of the Belle Époque, the cultural life of Wolxheim-Le Canal's bourgeois and aristocratic families was intense. Private parties with open-air games, chamber music concerts, tableaux vivants and shows enlivened the interiors and gardens of the residences in this hamlet nicknamed "Little Paris"
Among them were two amateur photographers, Paul Chastelain (1856-1920) and Théodore Grass (1865-1898), as well as Marianne Petiti (1874-1933), a painter trained in the art of pastel in Lothar von Seebach's private studio.
At the time, for a woman to claim the status of professional painter entailed difficulties and required fighting against prejudice and gender stereotypes.
In houses in and around the Canal, a few portraits by Marianne Petiti are preserved. For one afternoon, exceptionally, some of them will be reunited at Maison Carré. Michelle Jacquemot, who has long worked on the female students of Lothar von Seebach's studio, will present the pastels, accompanied by period photographs taken at the Canal by Paul Chastelain and Théodore Grass.
Mutzig