Technical information
- Title : Mazilia
- Date : c. 1927
- Technique : Watercolour
- Dimensions : Unknown
- Location : Private collection
Biographical / historical context
In 1927, André Breuillaud deepened his immersion in the working-class districts of northern Paris, where he encountered on a daily basis the North African communities established around Barbès, the Goutte d’Or, La Chapelle, Saint-Ouen and their fringe zones. The year marks a perceptible shift within the ZM corpus: after views of the urban edge and sites in transformation, attention turns toward people—faces, identities encountered, and the quality of presence in a gaze.
The handwritten note at the bottom of the work—“Mazilia 11-2-27”—is decisive. It attests to a meeting precisely dated 11 February 1927 and situates the study near Clichy, a hinge territory between Paris, Saint-Ouen and the building sites characteristic of the ZM imaginary. The care taken to name the sitter and to inscribe the date suggests a practice of direct documentation, without superficial exoticism: Breuillaud seeks less a type than a singular presence.
Formal / stylistic description
The young woman, identified as Mazilia, is shown in three-quarter view, in a calm and silent pose marked by inner restraint. The watercolour combines the lightness of washes with the precision of darker accents concentrated on the face. The warm complexion, high cheekbones, full lips and downcast gaze define an immediately legible physiognomy, without insistent description: fine shadows on the cheeks are obtained through transparent layering, and the contours are left open in places to let light circulate.
The turban, in a range of beiges and pinks, is laid in broad washes mixing ochre, sepia and rosy touches, while the right side of the sheet carries red and brown highlights—a chromatic surge that accompanies the figure and introduces an expressive, almost abstract dimension. The pale scarf, in bluish tones, is treated in broad, barely touched gestures. One recognises a clear alternation of technique—wet-on-wet for the flat areas, then wet-on-dry for modelling and accents—which allows the speed of execution and the captured moment to be felt.
The composition is centred on the face, without décor or anecdote: the portrait becomes inward and intimate, closer to a psychological capture than to an ethnographic study. A gentle melancholy runs through the whole, in contrast to other portraits of 1927 that are more frontal and more radiant.
Comparative analysis / related works
This portrait belongs to a group from 1927 devoted to female figures encountered in northern Paris. It forms a particularly eloquent diptych with Portrait of the Moukère: where the latter privileges frontality, intensity and an asserted gaze, Mazilia chooses intimacy, softness and inwardness. The two works respond to each other through their economy of means and their accuracy, while very subtly modulating the degree of psychological presence.
Compared to the darker vein of the ZM landscapes of 1925–1928, these watercolours testify to an opening toward the human figure and to a practice of social proximity: the material becomes transparent, space withdraws, and the technique adapts to the subject. Breuillaud’s interest lies here in a quality of silence and in the sitter’s inner density, more than in the description of outward signs.
Justification of dating
The date of 11 February 1927, written on the work, makes the dating fully reliable. The technique, palette and theme correspond to the phase of portraits produced during the winter and spring of 1927, in the context of meetings in Clichy, Saint-Ouen and the vicinity of Barbès. No stylistic or material element contradicts this date.
Provenance / exhibitions / publications
Private collection.