Studio of
Lucien COUTAUD
1904 – 1977, French
Hommage to
Antoine-Augustin Paramentier
Gouache on Paper
20” x 18” framed
Lucien Coutaud is well known for being one of Europe’s most famous Surrealist printmakers. This work shows Coutaud paying tribute to the 18th century French hero Antoine-Augustin Paramentier. Paramentier. Paramentier is best remembered as a vocal promoter of cultivating the potato, which was discovered in the New World, as a food source in France and throughout Europe.
Here we see Paramentier’s winning over of the Parisian peasants with a Trojan Potato. After having won over Louis XVI with all of the potato’s possibilities, Louis XVI gave him two hectares of military land near Paris, at la plaine des Sablons à Neuilly, to grow potatoes. Patrolled by day by Royal soldiers, the plot was left unguarded at night, irresistibly drawing the locals who stealthily harvested the apparently forbidden fruit to savor over a home fire.
Paramentier is buried in Père Lachaise Cemetary in Paris, and is memorialized by a stop in the Paris Métro. At Montdidier, his bronze statute surveys Place Paramentier from socle, while below in full marble relief, seed potatoes are distributed to a grateful peasant.
$500