Tombe du Facteur Cheval située au cimetière communal

English translation

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History

Tomb built from 1912 to 1920 by Ferdinand Cheval, known as the Postman Cheval, for himself. His "Palais Idéal" was built from 1897 to 1912 in the same commune (see notice PA00116966). The tomb materializes the "later manner", more abstract, of the Postman Cheval. Upon the death of his daughter, in 1894, he decided to take up again the sketches of the Egyptian tomb which he wished to integrate into the Palace in order to be buried there, a project abandoned for lack of official authorization. He then conceives a sort of funerary chapel which he adapts with a cross at the back of the cemetery of Hauterives. He clothes it with a cement stele, stones and shells. In 1914, he purchases a plot in the Hauterives cemetery, moves his daughter's funerary chapel and erects his tomb. It is a work more modest than the Palace but also more laden with more spontaneous and freer work of cement. The small architectures present in the Palace are found again, as well as the work with shells. The south and east façades are particularly luxuriant. One of the rare Christian references of this tomb consists in the letters JMJ - Jesus Mary Joseph. Cheval names his tomb: the tomb of silence and rest without end. He completes it at 86 years of age, after eight years of labour.