Montmartre at rue Damrémont, 1885 (1885)

This is not only an immaculately composed and coloured painting, it is also a historic snapshot of the birthplace of Bohemia at the very moment it was being born.

Until 1860, Montmartre was an independent commune located just outside Paris. It then became the eighteenth district of Paris. While respectable Parisians avoided the area due to its ensuing density of cabarets and brothels, such a place was like a honeyed croissant to the burgeoning, louche artitstic milieu. In it over the following decades, amidst a seamy vortex of Pernod, absinthe and syphilis were conceived some of the great ideas and movements in art history and a lifestyle that has been tirelessly imitated (if unauthentically) ever since.

Louis-Jules Dumoulin was a French artist and painter. He travelled widely in East Asia and was the founder of the Colonial Society of French Artists in 1908 remaining its president until his death in 1924.

Louis-Jules Dumoulin’s work has been offered at auction multiple times, the record price for this artist at auction is 28,525 USD for Portique de la Tombeau sold at Ivoires Chartres in 2021.