Armand DORVILLE’s collection
Armand Dorville's collection included more than 450 paintings, drawings, pastels, and sculptures. As a great art lover and a patron of the art, he regularly lent his works to Parisian museums for exhibitions, and he was a member of the jury for the Grand Prix de peinture in 1932.
Upon his death in 1941, he bequeathed numerous works to national collections, including a large collection of watercolors and drawings by Constantin Guys to the Museum of Decorative Arts and paintings by Jean Béraud to the Carnavalet Museum.
Armand Dorville was particularly fond of the work of Constantin Guys, of whom he owned more than a hundred watercolor drawings. In 1937, he was behind an exhibition dedicated to the artist at the Museum of Decorative Arts, for which he wrote the preface to the catalog.
Armand Dorville's collection is mainly made up of works from the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Drawings and watercolors feature prominently, alongside a large collection of paintings by Impressionist painters.
Although the works show a great variety of subjects, Armand Dorville's taste for scenes of Parisian life is easily discernible. The most represented artists, Constantin Guys, Jean Louis Forain and Henry Monnier, thus provide, through different techniques and styles, a rich and varied view of Parisian life in the 19th century.
The group of Impressionists is represented by numerous artists, both in drawing and painting, among whom are Pissarro, Renoir, Cassatt, Caillebotte or Degas. Armand Dorville also owned many works by Vuillard and Vallotton, nine and seven paintings and pastels respectively, as well as six works by Fantin Latour and two by Delacroix.