Champrovent

Champrovent (French pronunciation: [ʃɑ̃pʁɔvɑ̃]) is a small village located in Savoie, France on the western foot of a mountain called Mont du Chat. It is located on the territory of the commune of Saint-Jean-de-Chevelu.

From Chambéry, the main city of Savoie, to join Champrovent, you should drive on the road to Lyon by the Chat tunnel. After crossing the tunnel, you should turn left in a village called Chevelu where a sign indicated Vernatel and Champrovent. This last village is located a few hundred meters away.

Champrovent is famous due to the stay there of the French painter Balthus during World War II. The main building in the village is a farm built in the 17th century. When the northern part of France was invaded by Germany, in June 1941, he decided to live there, where he painted Paysage de Champrovent and two versions of Le Salon. Balthus left Champrovent to Switzerland in late 1941,^[1] or early 1942; one version of Le Salon was sold by Sotheby's in 2019 for $3.5 million.^[2]

The first version is located in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the second is in the collections of MOMA in New York.

45°40′43″N 5°48′52″E / 45.67861°N 5.81444°E / 45.67861; 5.81444

References

^ Rewald, Sabine (1 May 2008). "In the mood of the Old Masters: Balthus". Tate Museums. Retrieved 6 February 2026. The recent Simon Sainsbury bequest that consists of a gift of five paintings to the National Gallery and thirteen to Tate is one of the most important in Tate's history. Among the works by Bacon, Bonnard, Freud and Zoffany are three paintings by Balthus, including Still Life with a Figure, explored by a Balthus specialist who met the sitter in the painting.
Still Life with a Figure 1942 was among the first works Balthus painted at Champrovent, the seventeenth-century manor house in Savoy where he lived during the Second World War. The artist had been mobilised in September 1939, seen battle, then suffered a nervous breakdown. After recuperating in Paris during the winter of 1939–40, in June 1940 he and his wife Antoinette had sought refuge in Champrovent, which, south of Chambéry, was at that time still in the free zone not yet occupied by the Germans.
^ "BALTHUS: Étude pour "Le Salon"". Sotheby's. Retrieved 6 February 2026. Encompassing Balthus' recurrent themes of adolescence and insouciance, the present work is a study for two monumental canvasses of the same subject, both titled Le Salon. The artist's Étude pour "Le Salon" and its related versions were inspired by his friend Pierre Leyris' farmhouse at Champrovent, where Balthus and his wife stayed between 1940-42 after his demobilization from the army, and where the present oil was painted according to Sabine Rewald. It was the parlor at Champrovent which provided the setting for this study and the larger related canvasses.

[1] Rewald, Sabine (1 May 2008). "In the mood of the Old Masters: Balthus". Tate Museums. Retrieved 6 February 2026. The recent Simon Sainsbury bequest that consists of a gift of five paintings to the National Gallery and thirteen to Tate is one of the most important in Tate's history. Among the works by Bacon, Bonnard, Freud and Zoffany are three paintings by Balthus, including Still Life with a Figure, explored by a Balthus specialist who met the sitter in the painting.
Still Life with a Figure 1942 was among the first works Balthus painted at Champrovent, the seventeenth-century manor house in Savoy where he lived during the Second World War. The artist had been mobilised in September 1939, seen battle, then suffered a nervous breakdown. After recuperating in Paris during the winter of 1939–40, in June 1940 he and his wife Antoinette had sought refuge in Champrovent, which, south of Chambéry, was at that time still in the free zone not yet occupied by the Germans.

[2] "BALTHUS: Étude pour "Le Salon"". Sotheby's. Retrieved 6 February 2026. Encompassing Balthus' recurrent themes of adolescence and insouciance, the present work is a study for two monumental canvasses of the same subject, both titled Le Salon. The artist's Étude pour "Le Salon" and its related versions were inspired by his friend Pierre Leyris' farmhouse at Champrovent, where Balthus and his wife stayed between 1940-42 after his demobilization from the army, and where the present oil was painted according to Sabine Rewald. It was the parlor at Champrovent which provided the setting for this study and the larger related canvasses.

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