Watercolors

Watercolors. By Father J. M. Paret, Pastor. 1848-1869. "... the most important single group of landscape paintings done before the Civil War in Louisiana. Nothing is comparable to them." Pat Bacot, Louisiana State Museum, Father Joseph Michel Paret born in 1807 in Pelussin, France came to Little Red Church, a mission church on the German Coast, in 1848 to serve as its Pastor, providing for the spiritual needs of the parishioners. He would witness an exceptional period in our parish history when sugar plantations were prosperous; later, he would witness the profound consequences of the Civil War. Father Paret traveled by steamboat to New Orleans where he purchased a sketchbook in a stationary shop on Chartres Street near St. Louis Cathedral. In the coming years he would begin painting watercolors of St. Charles Red Church, the Presbytery and plantations, detailing daily life along the River Road in St. Charles Parish., In 1869 the watercolors went back to France with Father Paret when he returned home. In 1987, his sketchbook and journal were rediscovered in an old trunk in Pelussin, France. Almost 140 years after his sketches were painted, Father Peret's watercolors and journal excerpts can be seen in Plantations by the River by Marcel Boyer, edited by Dr. Jay Edwards and published by LSU Press. Thanks to Father Paret, we are able to view life as it was in St. Charles Parish in the mid 19th Century.