Johan Barthold Jongkind (Dutch, 1819-1891) La rue Saint-Jacques, Paris, 1872 Oil on canvas 22-1/4 x 17 inches (56.5 x 43.2 cm) Signed, dated, and inscribed lower right: Paris / Jongkind / 1872 Property from a Dallas Collection PROVENANCE: R. M. Thune & Co., New York; John and Paul Herring & Co., New York, acquired from the above circa 1985; Private collection, acquired from the above; Sotheby's, New York, May 7, 2015, lot 3; Acquired from the above. LITERATURE: E. Moreau-Nélaton, Jongkind raconté par lui-même, Paris, 1918, fig. 120, illustrated; A. Stein, S. Brame, F. Lorenceau & J. Sinizergues, eds., Jongkind, catalogue critique de l'oeuvre, vol. I, Paris, 2003, p. 260, no. 672, illustrated (with incorrect provenance listed). By 1872, when La rue Saint-Jacques, Paris was painted, Johan Barthold Jongkind's circle extended to figures such as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley, placing him within the broader network of artists whose depictions of modern life were often rejected by the official Paris Salon. In his work, Jongkind frequently turned to the streets of the Faubourg Saint-Jacques, the neighborhood surrounding his residence at 5, rue de Chevreuse, where he lived from 1861 until the end of his life. In these years, urban development transformed Paris, and Jongkind documented both the demolition and reconstruction of the city. In the present work, the seventeenth-century Église Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas stands in the distance along the rue Saint-Jacques, a commercial stretch of the street enlivened by the shopfronts and signage of a modernizing city. Indeed, a striking feature of the composition is the prominently displayed, large-scale advertisement for La Maison de la Rue du Pont-Neuf, a well-known Parisian retailer specializing in menswear and children's clothing, which opened in the autumn of 1868. The blue-suited boy holding a banner reading "On rend l'argent de tout achat qui a cessé de plaire" ("we refund money for any purchase that has failed to please") was strategically placed in elevated locations throughout several Parisian streets, as well as in newspapers and colorful posters. An emblem of modern urban life, Gustave Doré captured this signage and the Rue Saint Jacques in his 1871 Paris assiégé (a powerful visual record of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War). In 1872, Jongkind sketched the sign in preparation for La rue Saint-Jacques and, in 1878, returned to the subject in two compositions closely related to the present work. The artist's sustained interest in this image reveals his engagement with the visual language of the modern street. By incorporating such a recognizable element of popular culture into his painting, he elevated it into a subject worthy of artistic attention. This sensitivity to the character of modern Paris was noted by Émile Zola, who found a kindred spirit in the artist, writing in 1872: "I love, with passion, the horizons of the great city. To my mind, there is a rich vein there, an entire modern art to be created. The boulevards bustle in the sunlight... the intersections raise their tall houses, with the cheerful notes of shop signs... Ah! how mistaken are those who seek art hundreds of leagues away! Art is here, all around us, a living, unknown art... at every step a new painting unfolds... This deep love of modern Paris, I have found in Jongkind. He understood that Paris remains picturesque even in its humblest corners (as translated from the French, E. Zola, "Jongkind," Lettres parisiennes, published in La Cloche, January 24, 1872, n.p., as quoted in F. Auffret, Johan Barthold Jongkind, 1819–1891 : héritier contemporain & précurseur : biographie illustrée, Paris, 2004, p. 202). HID12401132022 © 2026 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice

R. M. Thune & Co., New York; John and Paul Herring & Co., New York, acquired from the above circa 1985; Private collection, acquired from the above; Sotheby's, New York, May 7, 2015, lot 3; Private collection, Dallas, acquired from the above.

Condition report available upon request.
Framed Dimensions 31 X 26.5 X 3.25 Inches