Deval in His Domain: An Off-Site Exhibition at the Domaine d'Orvès in La Valette-du-Var
The Domaine d’Orvès
From May 8 to 11, 2025, Galerie Alexis Pentcheff—usually welcoming collectors in a stately home overlooking the sea in the Marseille calanque of Malmousque—will be relocating to the outskirts of Toulon, to a poetic setting that was once the home and studio of painter Pierre Deval (1897–1993). Even more than that, this place was his anchor, his deepest source of inspiration. For the length of an extended weekend, the artist’s daughter and grandchildren have generously agreed to open not only the gates of the Jardin Remarquable of the Domaine d’Orvès to art lovers, but also the doors of the house and studio where Pierre Deval spent most of his life. With respect and emotion, we hand you the keys to this home, this artist’s studio frozen in time, and now rediscovered by nostalgic and enchanted visitors alike.
Through the wrought iron gate, catching a glimpse of the moss-covered steps leading up to the bastide of the Domaine d’Orvès is already a rich promise for dreamers.
Flanked by trickling fountains, the path to painter Pierre Deval’s studio is a journey of wonder. To the gentle murmur of water, birds lend their voices—joined even by the frogs living placidly in the stone basins.
It feels like the South, and just as the song foretold, where time lasts a long time, war nonetheless found its way there. Though nothing of it shows today, it is only thanks to tireless work and unwavering determination that the Deval family managed to rebuild all that had suffered under the unrest of man during the occupation.
Once inhabited by German officers, the Domaine d’Orvès—having survived centuries—came perilously close to losing its soul. Deforested, disfigured, desolate… it was saved through patience and love. And who but an artist could have achieved this so powerfully?
Later in the 20th century, another threat loomed over the estate: a war waged in the name of modernity—the advance of housing developments and relentless urbanization, encroaching dangerously upon its meadows.
Out of love once more, it became necessary to fight against the absurd notion that no one would need, in the century to come, the presence of frogs and tender grasses.
In the 1990s, part of the estate was added to the supplementary inventory of Historic Monuments, standing firm against the tide of concrete.
Still intact, Orvès nonetheless cries out with all its might that it does not belong to our hurried era, to our fixed obsession with immediate profitability. A community of devoted Friends gives it time, helping the family tend to it and share it in its best light.
Thanks to them, Orvès remains a Remarkable Garden, generously opening its gates when fair weather returns.
Cared for but never tamed, the garden flows with the seasons like a quiet melody unlocking the secret of the moment.
In the home-studio of painter Pierre Deval
That music—Chopin or Bach—continues inside the bastide, carried by one of the pianos standing proudly in the salon, remembering how Henriette, the painter’s wife, would play for their guests.
Albert Marquet, Willy Eisenschitz, Pierre-Jean Jouve and others were received at the estate, sharing long summer meals at the garden table, inevitably pestered by mosquitoes.
While the grounds are regularly open to the public, the house and Pierre Deval’s studio remain Orvès’ true secret garden.
There, the objects of the artist’s daily life are still preserved—along with, of course, his paintings: dozens of portraits, female nudes, memories of beach scenes and local landscapes...
This exhibition offers a rare opportunity—thanks to the kind invitation of Françoise Darlington, the artist’s daughter—to explore the painter’s vast domain and, perhaps, acquire one of his works.
From the moment Pierre and Henriette Deval discovered Orvès in the spring of 1925, they remained faithful to it until the end of their lives.
Is it their spirit that still lingers in the estate? Or is it Orvès itself, rich in history and rooted in its land, that whispered to the artist’s ear?
Perhaps it is the story of a providential encounter, a fortunate symbiosis between an artist and his domain.
The mystery is yours to unravel.
We invite you to the Domaine d’Orvès to discover the works of Pierre Deval, from May 8 to 11.
