The Construction Site

This Paris building site of 1911 entered the national collection as a gift from an art dealer better known for Old Masters. In 1929 Joseph Duveen, the British dealer who sold Renaissance paintings to American millionaires, gave it to the French state. It went to the Musée du Luxembourg, the state's museum for living artists, while Luce was still at work at 71. The picture itself is timber and labour. Scaffolding climbs a tall wooden frame, men stand on the platforms, a black crane arm swings over the yard, horses wait at the edge, and a crew shovels a bright orange heap in front. In 1950 the painting was lent to the art and history museum in Saint-Denis, just north of Paris, and it stayed there until 2012, when it came to Orsay.