Souvenir sheet issued on 22 April 2024 with Facteur Cheval and his “Art Brut” artwork – the “Palais idéal”.
The ‘Palais Idéal’ in Hauterive is a national monument in France and attracts thousands of visitors from all over the world every year, including us on our current holiday in France. We actually only went to see it because we saw a miniature sheet commemorating the 100th anniversary of the artist’s death on 22 April 2024 at a post office and realised that it was very close by. I was also interested in it because we had dedicated one of our last medical philatelic magazines to ‘Art Brut’, to which this work also belongs.
There was already a stamp with the image of the Palais Idéal in 1984
Ferdinand Cheval, also known as Facteur Cheval, was born on 19 April 1836 in Charmes-sur-l’Herbasse, France. As a simple rural postman in Hauterives, he actually led a quiet life until 1879, when he stumbled across an unusually shaped stone during one of his daily 40 kilometre postal rounds. This find inspired him to create a vision of an ideal palace. Over the next 33 years, Cheval collected stones, snail shells and fossils that he found on his daily routes and began to build his ‘Palais Idéal’. This palace is an extraordinary mixture of different architectural styles inspired by nature and different cultures, the characteristics of which he learnt about from postcards, stamps and magazines he distributed as postman.
FDC of the block of this year.
Cheval works alone, without any architectural training, using only his hands and simple tools. He builds the palace, often at night by candlelight, after completing his postal route during the day. The result is a complex and fascinating structure that is around 26 metres long and up to 10 metres high. The palace shows influences from Hindu and biblical architecture, as well as elements of nature and mythology. The palace was completed in 1912 after ‘10,000 days, 93,000 hours, 33 years of struggle’. Cheval died in 1924, having also spent 8 years building his ‘tombstone’. Despite initial scepticism and disapproval from neighbours and contemporaries, who often regarded Cheval as eccentric, the ‘Palais Idéal’ was eventually recognised as a masterpiece of Naïve Art.
The Palais Idéal as it can currently be seen in Hauterive.
- Date of issue: 2024-04-22
- Size: 105 x 71.5 mm
- Colours: Multicolour
- Designer: Sophie Beaujard (E)
- Printer: Philaposte (Phil@poste)
- Format: Block
- Perforation: 13¼ x 13
- Printing: Reset
- Value: 1.29 € – Euro
- Circulation: 350,000