Paul GAUDIN (1858-1921, engineer and archaeologist) / Import - Lot 510

Paul GAUDIN (1858-1921, engineer and archaeologist) / Important collection of over 300 drawings and crobars by Paul Gaudin - The interest in Paul Gaudin is twofold: he is an important figure in the history of the Chemin de Fer, and one of the Louvre Museum's largest donors of archaeological artefacts - this man with an exceptional destiny began his career as an engineer with Chemins de Fer de l'Ouest, and was assigned to Rambouillet at the end of the 1870s, then to Alençon in the 1880s (where his colleague was Fulgence Bienvenüe), during the heyday of the railway and its expansion, He became a much sought-after and consulted engineer (in 1885, he studied the establishment of the Berlin ring railway); in 1892, he left for Turkey to manage the Moudania-Brousse railway line; in 1894, he became director of the Smyrna-Cassaba railroad, in charge of extending the line; in 1906, the Ottoman Sultan appointed him general manager of the Hedjaz line linking Damascus to Mecca, He became a key figure on the railroad, pampered by the French government because his position in the Ottoman Empire strengthened France's influence there - Settling in Smyrna, he developed a passion for antiquities and built up a rich archaeological collection, especially as Smyrna at the end of the 19th century was experiencing a frenzy of new construction in its suburbs, which caused hundreds of objects to spring up from its subsoil, which he strove to safeguard - Very quickly, as an impulsive collector, he began to undertake excavations, obtaining concessions from the Ottomans and even a mission from the French government - as an amateur archaeologist, he financed but also became a dealer, donating over 2,100 archaeological objects to the Louvre Museum / THE DRAWINGS: they come in all formats, most of them on reused paper, which makes it possible to situate them in time as they were produced - some of the sketchbook pages date from the 1860s and are early drawings (In the 1870s, he was at the Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris, and was already enjoying sketching his fellow students and teachers; then, as a young engineer, he joined the Chemins de Fer de l'Ouest, in Rambouillet and Epernon, at the end of the 1870s, and then, in the 1880s, the management of Alençon - He applied himself, as a dilettante, to sketching his fellow students and teachers, and then, as a young engineer, he joined the Chemins de Fer de l'Ouest, in Rambouillet and Epernon, and then, in the 1880s, the management of Alençon), As a dilettante, he sketched all the people around him; he was a good portraitist, and it's easy to see why his mastery of drawing later enabled him to draw up invaluable archaeological surveys - Some of his portraits are on the back of his business cards, another on the back of a British South Coast Railway ticket, many are named (Alba, Cherbourg stationmaster, Buhon, mechanic of the rotting machine at Courville, Mr. Yvart notary in Alençon etc.).), he likes to caricature the politicians of his time (Jules Ferry, Grévy, etc.), and draws scenes of magic lantern projections (one is reused on a fragment of a letter addressed to Fulgence Bienvenüe), all very lively.