Oil on panel Jean-François Louis Merlet – Montségur, 1939

Oil on wood panel signed Jean-François Louis Merlet (1878–1942) and dated 1939, depicting the Château de Montségur in Ariège. The famous Cathar castle dominates its rocky outcrop here, treated with generous material and an expressive touch, in a beautiful palette of blues, ochres, greens, and stone tones. Jean-François Louis Merlet was a painter, writer, and art critic. He maintained close ties with the South-West and notably founded an art gallery in Toulouse in 1918. Artist: Jean-François Louis Merlet. Subject: Château de Montségur. Date: 1939. Technique: oil on wood panel. Dimensions: 24.5 × 35 cm. Signature: signed and dated at the bottom right. Frame: sold without a frame. Condition: generally good condition for the period, with minor wear, chips, and old accidents on some edges and corners of the panel, visible in the photos. The reverse features an old pencil drawing. A particularly decorative French work from the interwar period, with a historical subject emblematic of the Pyrenees.