Groupe des amoureux

French town halls were still getting painted decoration in the 1930s, a Third Republic habit that outlived the style it was born in, and Henri Martin, past 70, was given the staircase of honour at the town hall of the 5th arrondissement in Paris. Five large canvases went up there. Before painting them he worked out passages on separate canvases like this one, which lifts a single group out of the crowd. A couple walk arm in arm along the edge of the Luxembourg basin with their heads inclined together, and two toy sailboats sit on the water beside them. Martin had been painting in small separated touches of colour since the 1880s, a habit taken from the Neo-Impressionists that he never gave up. The five canvases are still on the staircase. The study crossed the river to the Petit Palais, the city of Paris's own museum.