Elisée Maclet had many points in common with his contemporary Maurice Utrillo (1883- 1955). A peasant’s son with a limited artistic background, the Picardy-born Maclet moved to Montmartre in Paris around 1912. He worked at many different jobs – including that of gardener at the Moulin de la Galette – while drawing attention to the landscapes of Montmartre, which he painted with conviction and spontaneity, either from nature or from postcards. He was well liked and appreciated as a painter by poets and writers, including Francis Carco, Roland Dorgelès, Colette and, above all, Max Jacob (1876-1944). A friend of Guillaume Apollinaire, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Georges Braque (1882-1963), Henri Matisse (1869- 1954) and Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920), Jacob put Maclet up in his home for a time before World War I. He also wrote a supportive and friendly essay on Maclet which served posthumously as a preface to one of the painter’s exhibitions in 1946. Painting Montmartre’s famous landmarks, as did Utrillo, as well as landscapes in Normandy and the Midi region of France, Maclet was already well known in Parisian artistic circles by the early 1920s. However, as in the case of Utrillo, his career was compromised by illness, mental imbalance and alcoholism, especially after 1933.  

Maclet’s evocation of the picturesque Montmartre  – a popular, bohemian district, a little shady, and a  haven for writers, poets, singers and penniless artists  of all kinds – was at the source of his celebrity,  which remains undisputed to this day. The painting  in the A. G. Leventis Collection depicts the Moulin  de la Galette, among the most famous locations in  Montmartre. The last surviving from among many  windmills that had existed since the 19th century,  the Moulin de la Galette had been turned into a tavern  where people went dancing. It was frequented  by inhabitants of Montmartre and Parisians who  yearned for the country-like setting of the premises.  Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) immortalised  it in his 1876 masterpiece Bal du Moulin de la Galette  (Paris, Musée d’Orsay). Other artists also worked  on paintings of the windmill, notably Paul Signac  (1863-1935) and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890).  Maclet, after reprising the subject numerous times,  chose to depict the windmill’s rear façade, opposite  its entrance on the Rue Lepic, and it is this point of  view that we see in this canvas.