Eric Gillis Fine Art - Catalogue 17 - June 2016

E R I G I L L I S F I N E

A RT

1525 1929

Paintings Drawings & Sculptures

 catalogue 17

1525 1929

Paintings Drawings & Sculptures

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Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo 1480/85 – Brescia – 1548 Head of a bearded man, in three-quarter profile to the left

Black and white chalk on grey-blue paper, ca. 1525 Sheet 265 x 188 mm Provenance Jonathan Richardson Sen. (Lugt 2184);

Christie’s London, 3 July 2007, lot 13, sold as an original work by Savoldo (expert Benjamin Peronnet);

Private collection, United Kingdom

This fascinating portrait is part of small group of head studies of similar size all atrributed to Savoldo. They are all drawn in very soft heavily stumped black chalk with highlights in white chalk. He was an exceptionally rare draftsman, to whom only about fifteen drawings have been now attributed.

His drawings exhibit the same sense of atmosphere and luminosity that characterize the chalk drawings of Titian, Lotto, and painters of the Venetian school. Others are at the Getty Museum (George Goldner and Lee Hendrix, European Drawings: Catalogue of the Collections, Malibu, I, 1988, no. 45; and II, 1992, no. 45), the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, the Uffizi, and the Louvre (Sybille Ebert-Schifferer et al., Giovanni Gerolamo Savoldo und die Renaissance zwischen Lombardei und Venetien, Frankfurt, Kunsthalle, 1990, nos. II.1-2, 4-5 and 7-8).

of superb collections sold at his time, as for instance those of Lely, Lankrink, Lord Somers, the poet Prior and Talman . He was helped in his collecting intention by his son. In 1722, they published An Account of some of the Statues, Basreliefs, Drawings and Pictures in Italy. They also helped to arrange the collections of the Duke of Devonshire. Its sale in 1747 appealed to a large number of “Nobles & Gentlemen” buyers.

A significant part of the lots went to Richardson son-in-law Thomas Hudson. As a pupil of the later, Joshua Reynolds got many of these drawings. It is not surprising that Richardson had the present sheet.

The sheet is good condition, not fine. It is laid down to a light blue support. There are tinny disturbances and some losses to the paper throughout. Old creases in the margins have been restored in. There is a star-shaped web of scratches in the lower margin away from the image. A few areas of thinning have been made up and skillfully toned, notably at the nose.

Generally, the sheet has been very skillfully and sensitively restored, and none of these restorations do disturb the intensity and quality of the chalk.

Particularly characteristic are the heavily lidded, rather sunken eyes and the dramatic chiaroscuro built up with long broad strokes of thick black chalk. Savoldo’s careful use of shadows and highlights increase the characteristically naturalistic portrayal of this unidentified man looking right at us, one of many that influenced generations of artists. The impact of these searching portraits is in part due to the scale of the brooding head studies which seem uncomfortably restricted within the boundaries of the sheet, a technique also employed in Savoldo’s painted compositions in which the actors fill the entire picture space. The chiaroscuro in Savoldo’s drawings is also mirrored in the paintings, in part by the powerful use of color developed after he settled in Venice in 1521.

The first owner known, Jonathan Richardson was a portrait painter, and collector of drawings and prints, considered as the greatest collector and connoisseur of Italian drawings at the beginning of the 18th century. He took great advantage 4

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Théodore Géricault 1791 Rouen – Paris 1824 Two Wrestlers

Pencil on laid paper, ca. 1815-20 Sheet 73 x 76 mm Reference Bazin, t. V, no. 1707, p. 230 (ill.)

Provenance Marie-Joseph-François Maherault, Paris; his posthumous sale at Drouot, 27-29 May 1880, lot 73;

Henri Marillier, Paris; Private collection, London

A captivating sheet by Géricault illustrating the artist’s fascination for boxing and wrestling. Pioneer of Romanticism, Gericault was interested in sensational images, such as battle scenes, rearing horses or injured bodies. Influenced by the military subjects of Baron Gros and by works in the Louvre, Gericault’s master work The Raft of the Medusa (Musée du Louvre, Paris) also expressed his attraction for modern drama.

An important print, entitled The Boxers and dated from 1818, followed by a series of studies depicting men fighting in various positions, demonstrate how Gericault was absorbed by this theme around 1820.

Our sheet is part of an ensemble of sketches, probably realized in front of the boxers during the fight, illustrating the different phases of the match; from two man standing in attitude of defense to hand-combat on the floor. Gericault evolved in his drawings from images of boxers in trousers to naked figures wrestling. Our drawing is more a wrestling scene, as the man is throwing his adversary body over him and to the floor. Inspired by his passion for boxing, these works gave the artist the occasion to master his aptitude to draw muscular anatomies, and display his talent to imagine stirring composition.

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François-Pascal-Simon Gérard, called Baron Gérard 1770 Rome – Paris 1837 Head of man, open-mouthed and wide-eyed Black chalk and gray watercolor on laid paper, ca. 1825-30 Stamped on back SUCCESSION F. GERARD Sheet 175 x 108 mm Provenance Jean Lignel, Paris; Private collection, London

A very unusual and Romanticism sheet by the Baron Gérard, most probably done at the peak of his career as a draughtsman, after 1815. Around 1825, Gérard produced some of his masterpieces related to mythology. This head – like a head cut off – is certainly linked to this, although we have not been able to link it with a specific work yet.

Another possibility is that Gerard did represent the head of a victim of the guillotine as he actually saw it: he was twentythree years old at the time of the Terreur and saw guillotine executions, a terrible experience that left unforgettable impressions. This would explain this weird piece from an artist known first for his Neo-classicism.

At that time, under the Restoration, Gerard was named First Painter of the King in 1817, function that he exercised under the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X. The Royal recognition earned him the title of Baron in 1819. As Professor at the École des Beaux-Arts, Gérard formed only a few students, compared to his colleague Antoine-Jean Gros. However, he supported the new generation, and especially the beginnings of Eugène Delacroix. His work, his salon and relations made him one of the most influential characters of the intellectual and artistic circles of the time.

On the back of the sheet, there is a drawing in black chalk of a woman. Four small losses of paper have been repaired on the corners.

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Edgar Degas

1834 – Paris – 1917

Dancing woman of Tanagra

Oil on board laid down on canvas, ca. 1857-59 Studio stamp lower left Degas Size 25.5 x 16 cm Reference Paul-André Lemoisne, Degas et son œuvre, vol. II, Paris, 1946, no. 39, p. 19 (ill.)

Provenance Estate of the artist; Atelier Degas, 4ème vente, 1919, lot 3A; bought 390 francs by Nunès & Fiquet,

Paris; Private collection, France

A fascinating, even mysterious, painting by Degas, and a rare example of his early work. Painted around 1857-59, Degas here represented a famous sculpture known today as the “Titeux Dancer” and kept at the Louvre since 1891.

Philippe-Auguste Titeux discovered this sculpture around the Acropolis in Athens. He offered it to his friend, the sculptor Pierre-Jules Cavelier who later donated it to the Louvre. Both met each other when they were pensioners of the Académie de France in Rome from 1843 to 1846, the year of Titeux’s death. Once the sculpture belongs to Cavelier, it arose great enthusiasm in the art milieu, fascinated by its simplicity and grace. It exemplified the romanticist approach of ancient Greece that was fantasized during the 19th century. This type of sculpture was often called the « Danseuses au manteaux » [The veiled Dancers]. The delicate folds of the seemingly transparent drapery herald the Tanagra style, and the figure is clearly influenced by Attic sculptural trends (the so-called “Rich style”). In a play of fluid, graceful lines, the feminine body is more revealed than concealed.

to our sculpture due to its similarities with objects found in that city, although it was found in Athens and is now definitively dated earlier, around ca. 375-350 BC, prefiguring the later Tanagra style.

Knowing the deep interest that Degas would develop later for ballerinas, we are not surprised to find this particular dancer in his early work. Close to Cavelier, Degas most likely did see the original in the sculptor’s studio. Inspired by this statue, he actually painted his first dancer figure, the first of a large – and how famous! – series. Even if Degas painted a sculpture, still and motionless, he achieved to render the impression of a beautiful movement suspended in time. The sentiment of motion is emphasized by the angle chosen by Degas to depict the sculpture. Though the Tanagra dancers were usually represented abreast, here, Degas turned his subject and adopted a slightly inclined perspective from below. He so focuses our attention to the movement of the dress while the Dancer’s breast stands out from the background, giving the figure a delicate sensuality and graceful monumentality.

Friends, colleagues and students of Cavelier reproduced the work in his studio. Many copies were made and the image of the sculpture spread quickly through Paris. A plaster copy even belonged to Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, who used it as source of inspiration. The Tanagra’s attribution was then given

As a Degas’s homage to classical antiquity, as well as a prefiguration of his favorite subject, this work finally illustrates much more than the ‘Dancer from Tanagra’.

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Hector Leroux

1829 Verdun – Angers 1900

Interior of a Gothic Prison

Watercolor on laid paper, 1850 Signed and dated with ink lower left Leroux 1850 Sheet 355 x 305 mm Provenance Private collection, France

As a specialist in paintings of history, also close to the Romantics, Leroux usually staged his composition in a dramatic environment, conferring to his works a theatrical expression. The present sheet most probably was a study for a scenery that he would have inhabited with characters afterwards. His master piece, Funérailles au Columbarium de la maison des Césars, porte Capène à Rome dated from 1864 (Musée d’Orsay, Paris) was also situated in a dark vault, only enlightened by an open door at the top of the room. In our drawing, the elaborated game of light creates the work’s mastery; a top window with bars illuminates the impressive dome, while the light through the prison door projects on the floor a thrilling grid. The massive chains attached to the

walls and the mocking gargoyles bearing the gothic ogives, increase the dramatic impression of the scene.

Leroux travelled often to Rome, between 1860 and 1877, where he visited archaeological sites and discovered the architecture of the Renaissance. Passionate by the city and the Antiquity, the artist set the majority of his compositions in classical scenery. Awarded la Légion d’honneur in 1877, Leroux was mostly celebrated for his nostalgic representations of Ancient times, in the mood of Hubert Robert, a century before him. The current drawing, depicting a medieval décor, offers a rare example of a more romantic scenery.

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Gustave Doré

1832 Strasbourg – Paris 1883

The Witch

Pencil, black chalk and white-body color on laid paper, 1853 Signed and dated with white-body color lower right G Doré 53 Sheet 401 x 153 mm Literature Jean Favière, Gustave Doré 1832-1883, Strasbourg, 1983, pp. 269-70 (about the Shakespeare project) Provenance Private Collection, France

It is an early and stunning work by Gustave Doré, at the time when, possibly, he was already thinking about illustrating Shakespeare. It is most probably one of the three witches of Macbeth.

Gustave Doré aimed to a large-scale illustration of Shakespeare’s Macbeth that was to set the crowning of his career. He wrote on this to his English publisher Cassel: “My intention is to make of Shakespeare my masterpiece; to add to the large independent plates a host of smaller illustrations... Finally, my idea would be to announce a thousand drawings - not one too many for a subject so vast and thousand is a round figure doing well in ads and posters”. Some biographers of Gustave Doré even claim that he planned to be his own publisher for this considerable work. Unfortunately, for some reason the artist never achieved his purpose. However, first drafts remain: six woodcuts published in La Semaine des Enfants in 1859 and the Journal pour Tous in 1862, a few unreleased woodcuts and a number of drawings.

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Odilon Redon

1840 Bordeaux – Paris 1916

Two figures in a stony landscape

Chinese ink on Bristol paper, ca. 1865 Signed with ink upper left Odilon Redon Sheet 118 x 167 mm Provenance Private collection, France

An outstanding sheet by Odilon Redon and of the up-most rarity. No comparable sheet was on the market during the last thirty years. To our knowledge, they are all in public collections.

The present work is part of a series of drawings realized by Redon after his stay in the Spanish Pyrenees between 1862 and 1863. Other drawings on thick Bristol paper such as Femme et enfant dans un paysage rocheux (The British Museum, London), and Deux personnages dans un paysage de montagne (Petit Palais, Paris), similar to our drawings, were composed during the same period. The Pyrenees, and specially the landscapes around the Cirque de Gavarnie inspired the young Redon but mostly connected him with his master, Rodolphe Bresdin (1822-1885). Indeed, the famous engraver often depicted this rocky region and had a significant influence on his pupil.

by multiple enigmatic silhouettes, Redon achieved to compose an oneiric drawing by isolating two figures in this strong, material and desert landscape. A brilliant printmaker, Redon offered texture and solidity to the landscape by hatching the paper, obtaining deep dark shadows and a very dense environment. Hidden under the largest rock, two figures animate this silent nature, whispering in the dark. Both are looking in the same direction, their sight following the arm of the woman and indicating a mysterious reality outside of the picture frame.

Applying the lesson of his former master, Redon successfully demonstrated his ability to construct a powerful landscape, already infused with a symbolist sentiment. Future “Master of the dark”, he early learned to structure his blacks and play with their intensity. The dark shadow surrounding the couple, hides them, while also immerging them in an anguished and scary aura. The potential of Redon’s most imaginative and original work is contained in this drawing.

Both artists explored the same geographical region, and both understood how to insert the wildness of Nature into their own imagination and universe. While Bresdin multiplied the details of the vegetation to create a fantastic world inhabited

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Rosa Bonheur

1822 Bordeaux – Thomery 1899

Head of a Doe

Oil on canvas, ca. 1863-80 Signed lower left Rosa Bonheur; with the artist’s studio sale red wax seal on the back (Lugt 276) Size 38 x 46 cm Provenance Artist’s studio sale, Paris, June 1900, no. 225 (label on the back), titled “Study of a young cow’s head”;

Private collection, Geneva; Private collection, London

Notwithstanding the subject, Rosa Bonheur’s works impress by its powerful realism. The artist did not follow any movement and did focus her entire oeuvre towards the depiction of “her animals”, as she called them. Instructed by her father, the artist Raimond Bonheur, she rapidly became successful at the Salon: she won the Gold Medal in 1848 and sold many of her works. In 1860, she isolated herself from the hectic Parisian life, and bought a house in a village close to Fontainebleau – called By – where she spent most of her life.

She obviously found inspiration in the vast forest, and it was her most creative period.

« Dans sa retraite, dans sa forêt, au milieu de ses hôtes, elle a vécu et elle vit, toute à son travail, à son art, sans souci de l’actualité qui passe, remplissant avec une ardeur que l’âge n’a pas apaisée sa mission d’artiste. […] Il y a dans le regard de ses bêtes cette mesure exacte d’expression qui leur appartient et dont Mlle Rosa Bonheur semble leur avoir arraché le secret, dans ses muets entretiens avec elles, ou mieux dans sa laborieuse et curieuse et infatigable contemplation […] »1. [In her retreat, in the forest, in the middle of her hosts, she lived and lives totally dedicated to her work, her art, without interest in the passing current affairs, fulfilling with ardour, unabated by age, her artistic mission. [...] In the sight of her animals, one sees the exact measure of expression that are genuine to them, and of which Miss Rosa Bonheur seems to have unclosed the secret, during her mute talks with them, or better, during her hard-working, inquisitive and tireless contemplation.]

This striking Head of a Doe has most probably been painted in By. In 1865, Bonheur finished an important composition entitled Les Cerfs sur les Longs Rochers (Family of deer), exhibited at the Universal Exhibition of 1867 in Paris (now at the Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota FL). In this monumental painting, five does follow a majestic stag across a desert landscape.

This iconic work, praised by the Empress Eugénie during her visit in Rosa’s studio, illustrates the artist’s interest for the representation of deer, stag and doe, and her knowledge of these animals. The present Head of a Doe could be a study in preparation for this project. Completely absorbed by the forest and its wildlife, Rosa Bonheur seduced the critics of the time in her depiction of these animals, such as Roger Milès who wrote about Family of deer:

As the critics pointed out, Rosa Bonheur had a talent for representing eyes and soul of animals. In Head of a Doe, the shining eyes of this isolated head, provoke a thrilling effect through a darkness unusual in Bonheur’s oeuvre.

1 Roger Milès, in L’Eclaire, 1867, quoted in Anna Klumpke, Rosa

Bonheur. Sa Vie, son œuvre, Paris, 1908, p. 368.

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Aimé-Jules Dalou 1838 – Paris – 1902 Les Châtiments after Victor Hugo

Bronze with brown patina, ca. 1885-86 Signed lower left DALOU and with foundry stamp lower left Susse Fres Edrs Size 26 x 19 cm (the so-called “version no. 2”) Literature Pierre Cadet, Susse frères 150 years of sculpture 1837-1987, Paris, Editions Susse frères, 1992, fig. 83, p. 50 Provenance Private collection, France

An exceptional and rare relief by Dalou, illustrating Victor Hugo’s Les Châtiments, a collection of satirical poems condemning Emperor Napoleon III’s coup in 1851. Dalou, strong admirer of Hugo, realized numerous sculptures inspired by the writer, including his project for Victor Hugo’s tomb presented at the Salon of 1886. The artist and the poet also shared the same political vision. They were both exiled from France, being both republicans. Hugo chose the exile after the coup d’état of Napoléon III. Dalou was exiled due to his participation to the Paris Commune in 1871. Les Châtiments, published in Belgium during Hugo’s exile, carried a history and a political value that should have motivated the sculptor.

only produced two plasters for it, now kept at Orsay and at Le Petit Palais, and a bronze cast presented at the Salon in 1890. Dalou who always refused to edit his sculptures in bronze, had to change his mind to face the expenses needed for his wife’s – as well as his own – medical treatment at the end of the 1890’s. For this reason, he signed in 1899 a contract with the Fonderie Susse to edit three of his popular sculptures, including the present Les Châtiments. The Susse brothers were the only founders who worked with Dalou. We now recorded three version-sizes of the present bas-relief: 15x11cm, 26x19cm, and 33x23cm. However, lifetime editions remain extremely rare, only the version no. 3 is known in posthumous editions, initiated by Dalou’s daughter, Georgette. For some reasons, no. 1 – one cast kept at Orsay – and no. 2 castings were quickly withdrawn by Susse, probably to privilege the slightly bigger version no. 3.

Initially, Dalou’s design was just intended to be etched by Félix Bracquemond as the frontispiece of the national edition of Les Châtiments around 1885-86. It never came out. Dalou

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Alexandre Séon 1855 Chazelles-sur-Lyon – Paris 1917 Woman seen from the back

Black and white pencil on beige paper, ca. 1885-89 Signed with pencil lower right Alex. Séon Sheet 460 x 275 mm Provenance Private collection, Belgium

An impressive large drawing by Alexandre Séon, illustrating his favourite subject: the idealistic beauty. Pupil of Henri Lehmann at l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1878, he frequented other students such as the symbolist painter Alphonse Osbert or Georges Seurat, who he befriended. Disappointed by the academic education, he left Lehmann’s studio in 1880, and became the disciple of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898).

For ten years, Séon was tutored by Puvis de Chavannes who invited him to collaborate on some of his projects, such as the murals for the Panthéon.

Our drawing testifies of Lehmann’s impact on Séon. Lehmann, himself a former pupil of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, shared his heritage, which is visible in the present Woman seen from the back. Graceful pose, delicate and flawless silhouette, Séon represented the ideal of the feminine beauty. The grid in light pencil in the background, and the use of white pencil to note the luminous relief, are typical of Séon’s studies and of his creative process. Our sheet could be a sketch for Séon’s mural for Courbevoie’s communal house; most precisely, for the panel entitled Summer. Realized between 1885 and 1889, this mural represents nude women bathing in a river. With long hair, and ideal feature, one of these nymphs is viewed from her back, in a similar pose as our model.

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Achille Laugé 1861 Arzens – Cailhau 1944 Portrait of a Lady with a Hat (Jeanne Sarraut)

Oil on canvas, 1888 Signed and dated lower left A. Laugé 88 Size 67.5 x 56 cm Literature Nicole Tamburini, Achille Laugé: le point, la ligne, la lumière, Carcassonne, 2009, no. 4, p. 25 (ill.)

Provenance Private collection, The Netherlands

This portrait by Achille Laugé illustrates the artist’s young years and his evolution towards pointillism. In 1882, the artist left for Paris to study at the Beaux-Arts. In 1888, he returned back home, at Carcassonne, where he stayed his whole life. Achille Laugé was a solitary artist. He marked little interest in academic education and disregarded any official career. As soon as 1890, Laugé painted in a very personal divisionism style, landscapes, still-lives and portraits. Having started painting with broad and little structured strokes, Laugé became after 1892 more and more meticulous to finally adopt a strict pointillism. This portrait is one of the rare examples of Laugé’s work before his neoimpressionist oeuvre, and certainly one of the nicest ones.

Dated from 1888, Laugé must have painted this portrait just after his return in Carcassonne, and reunion with his old friends. Jeanne was then twelve years old. The large hat and the costume create a silhouette with amplitude, as the empty background focuses our attention on her. The overall harmony of beige and pink is illuminated by the red touches of her lips echoed by her carmine earing. Although, this painting demonstrates the influence of impressionist portraits on the artist, Laugé developed here the premise of his pointillist manner: playing with the shadow created by her hat, Laugé used small touches to capture the games of light on her face.

This portrait of a young girl turning into a woman, was echoing a similar transition in Laugé’s career: he had left his academic method, but had not yet embarked himself into the adventure of neo-impressionism for good. Laugé later realized a second portrait of Jeanne, Portrait of Melle Jeanne Sarraut (unknown location), around 1892. Jeanne was then a young woman, wearing a long and elegant white dress.

The model, Jeanne Sarraut is the sister of Maurice and Albert Sarraut, Laugé’s close friends. Sons of Carcassonne’s mayor, they also both undertook political careers. They played a capital role in the promotion of Laugé’s art: they ordered portraits, encouraged him towards neoimpressionism and motivated the State to buy his works.

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Georges Lemmen 1865 Schaerbeek – Brussels 1916 Wombwell’s Menagerie

Pastel on cardboard, 1889 Titled, dated and signed lower right Wombwell’s Menagerie 1889/Lemmen, and with stamped monogram lower left Sheet 480 x 530 mm Literature Roger Cardon, Georges Lemmen, Antwerp, 1990, p. 79 (ill.); Jane Block, « Le Carrousel et le monde

de la fête foraine », in Roger Cardon (ed.), Georges Lemmen 1865-1916, Gent, 1997, p. 73 Provenance Private collection, Belgium

An excellent drawing illustrating an elephant, one of the key subjects in Lemmen’s early works. The present sheet is certainly part of the Lemmen’s famous series about the English Wombwell’s Menagerie, established in 1810 in London.

Over the course of the 19th century, itinerant zoos of exotic animals were very popular across Europe, see e.g. the elephant print of Los disparates of Goya (1820). The elephants were the main attraction when the Wombwell’s menagerie set in Brussels from January to March 1889. Lemmen, fond of fairs and circus, produced several drawings about the Wombwell’s, specially focused on the elephants; and he presented some of those in 1890 at the 6th exhibition of Les XX in Brussels.

than paper to sketch the animals in the menagerie itself. Our elephant served as model for other compositions, such as the Wombwell’s Menagerie: Les Eléphants n°1, formerly owned by Octave Maus and now kept at the Musée d’Ixelles (Brussels).

Since 1890, critics associated the image of the elephants with Lemmen, who identified himself with the animals and even signed some letters using the animal silhouette (see letters to Octave Maus, AACB, Brussels, inv. 11851 and 12220). Furthermore, the exhibition of the Wombwell’s Menagerie series at Les XX in 1890 attests to the success of the subject, as two of his drawings were sold during the salon (Wombwell’s Menagerie study no. 3 and no. 4, see L’Art Moderne, February 16, 1890, no. 7, p. 55; and February 23, 1890, no. 8, p. 59). Anchored in Belgium’s tradition, carnivals and fairs were very popular in Brussels and the commercial success of Lemmen foresaw the success of the Café Concert drawings of Seurat within Les XX’s milieu, and the impact these drawings had on the Belgian art scene.

Representing also others animals, such as lions and panthers, the present pastel seems to be the most complete depiction of the menagerie in Lemmen’s work. He often drew on used cardboard, probably a more practical support

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Georges Lemmen 1865 Schaerbeek – Brussels 1916 Portrait of Aline Maréchal

Crayon Conté on laid paper, 1890 Monogramed and inscribed with chalk lower right Au petit Bourreau, 1er août 90 à Thuin Sheet 259 x 251 mm Literature Roger Cardon, Georges Lemmen, Antwerp, 1990, p. 81 (ill.)

Exhibition Brussels, Musée d’Ixelles, Georges Lemmen, 1997, no. 24, p. 95 (ill.)

Provenance Artist’s heirs (until 1996); Private collection, Belgium

Brussels. He submitted two oil paintings, Bourgeois Interior and Young Woman Crocheting, and three pointillist drawings – the portrait of Jan Toorop and two studies for Bourgeois Interior.

These works, such as our portrait, demonstrate the influence of Seurat on Lemmen’s aesthetic development.

An astonishing and rare example of early Lemmen Neoimpressionist drawings, revealing the use of a masterful technique to express the warmth of an intimate portrait.

Since 1886, Lemmen had often depicted intimiste scenes of his family; usually representing his sister, Julie, or their mother and grandmother reading or knitting. In the present sheet, he focused his entire attention towards his future bride, Aline Maréchal. Even if this is the first portrait of Aline, the annotation on the drawing “Au petit bourreau” [To the little heart-killer] evoking a private joke, indicates that they already knew each other in 1890, three years before their wedding in 1893. Our work could be a birthday present for Aline, celebrated the 24th of July.

The Belgian artist achieved to reproduce the same overall softness of the atmosphere, as well as the delicate contrasts using Seurat’s Neo-impressionist manner for Crayon Conté drawings. He animated the composition with the balance between the gentle light that illuminates the face and the neck, and the variation of grey in the hair of Aline. In the shadow, her arm can be seen as she is holding her head with her hand in a relaxed posture. With her skin illuminating the work, the square format of the sheet, and the simplicity of the composition transform this portrait into an almost “sacred icon” of the woman he loved. One of the artist’s subtlest and personal pointillist drawings. Only ten to fifteen sheets from this top-end quality have survived.

The summer of 1890 is important in Lemmen’s artistic evolution, when he experimented with Neo-impressionist technique. The present sheet must be among the first ones, as only one drawing was dated earlier, July 19, 1890. He presented his works at the next exhibition of Les XX, in February 1891 in

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Julie Manet 1878 – Paris – 1966 Self-portrait in the garden of the Manet

Watercolor on wove paper, ca. 1896-98 Sheet 27 x 19 cm Provenance Private collection, The Netherlands

Her teenage diary – Journal: 1893-1899 – provides insights into the lives of French painters, including Renoir, Degas, Monet and Sisley, as well the 1896 state visit of Tsar Nicholas II and the Dreyfus Affair, which was then raging in France. The overwhelming impression one takes away is of an exceptionally bright, engaging and culturally aware young woman. She married in May 1900 Ernest Rouart, artist and nephew of the painter Henri Rouart, but also a very important collector at the time. The wedding was a double ceremony in which Julie’s cousin Jeannie married Paul Valéry.

Julie Manet was the daughter and only child of the artist Berthe Morisot and of Eugène Manet, younger brother of Edouard Manet. Her parents were highly cultured and independently wealthy. She had tutors rather than attending school, and was exposed very early to music and art, which she loved, and at which she became quite proficient. From quite a young age, she moved easily in artistic and literary circles, and became familiar with many of the famous artists of the time, such as Monet, Renoir and Degas. Even as a child, she was taken on trips abroad, where she enjoyed visiting galleries and museums, developing a discerning appreciation. She was an only child, exceptionally attractive, and frequently sat as a model for other artists, including Manet, her mother and Renoir.

The style of the present piece is undoubtedly close to the ones of her mother Berthe Morisot; with a very vivid palette and clearly impressionist. The stroke is however larger than her mother, more serene. All her life, Julie used to draw her relatives in daily activities, enjoying the garden, reading or playing. She drew a lot in sketch books that still remain mostly in her heirs’ hands.

The death of both her parents left her orphan at the age of 16. As a result, she came under the affectionate guardianship of Stephane Mallarmé from 1894 and went to live with her cousins, Paule and Jeannie Gobillard – also orphans of Berthe’s sister and Theodore Gobillard – in the family house at Villejuif.

Given in-depth comparisons with photographs, it is most probably a portrait of her-self, although we cannot be absolutely sure.t

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Louis Hayet 1864 Pontoise – Cormeilles-en-Parisis 1940 The Chimneys

Oil on cardboard, ca. 1891-92 Stamped signature lower right LHayet Size 24 x 27 cm Reference Louis Hayet’s archives, under the number 91-92-7-T Literature Guy Dulon and Christophe Duvivier, Louis Hayet peintre et théoricien du néo-impressionnisme,

Pontoise, 1991, p. 118 (ill.)

Provenance Régine and Guy Dulon, France

Les XX for instance, he presented works with titles illustrating his experiments Matin; soleil, Temps gris, Après-midi; soleil, Cinq heure, Place de la Concorde.

A delightful sky landscape by Louis Hayet, actually focused on Parisian chimneys.

Although close to Camille and Lucien Pissarro since his childhood, the impressionist Hayet is amazingly less known than his friends. Hayet first respected the strict vision of pointillism such as elaborated by Seurat, based on the optical theory of colors association. While he had contributed to the avant-garde of the 1880’s, he distanced himself from the neoimpressionist group after Seurat’s death and created his own aesthetic model far from Signac’s influence. He even founded in 1891 his own design firm for theatre’s stages. Praised at the Salon des Indépendant in 1889 and at Les XX in 1890, his research on atmospheric representation was at the core of his art. At

Hayet was celebrated by critics such as Félix Fénéon or Gustave Kahn, and his works were published in La Vie Moderne. Usually painted in small dimensions, their originality proceeds from Hayet’s brushstrokes, luminous and animated atmospheres, features that most likely influenced Vincent Van Gogh in the 80’s. Importantly, Hayet wrote several texts about the theory of colors, preserved in his personal notebooks.

Here, the touch of orange and pink in the clouds illuminates and brings warmth to the delicate purple of their shades. Superb.

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Luigi Loir 1845 Goritz – Paris 1916 On the Boulevard by Night

Ink and lavish on wove paper, ca. 1890-95 Signed with ink lower right LUIGI LOIR Sheet 275 x 215 mm Provenance Private collection, France

On the Boulevard is a fine example of Luigi Loir’s oeuvre, almost entirely dedicated to Paris. A master of Parisianism, Loir realized an impressive corpus of works depicting the French capital in various aspects. Born in Austria, raised in Parma, from French parents employed by the Bourbons’s, Loir first studied Art in Parma. In 1863, at 18 years old, he moved to Paris. In the 1850’s, Haussmann had transformed the capital and created les grands boulevards that changed the city’s dynamics and landscape. If many artists were captivated by the city’s metamorphose, and inspired by the new modern city life, Loir was most probably the most prolific painter of the “new” Paris’s landscapes.

of ink wash to create different density in the darkness. In the centre of the composition, an intense black silhouette focuses our attention while walking fast towards a little street stand, the unique source of light. Much more than a simple representation of Paris, Loir composed, in this drawing with only a few forms and figures, a rich and lively atmosphere.

Lesser known today by the public, Loir received many awards for his participation to the Salon, as well as a gold medal in 1889 for his entry at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. He was member of the Société de Peintres-Lithographes, of the Société des Aquarellistes, of the Jury of the Société des Artistes Français and of the Société des Arts Décoratifs since 1899, he was part of the Office d’Académie in 1889 and became Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 1898.

The present scene, drawn in a night-time ambiance, offers a mysterious portrait of the city. Loir mastered the technique

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Eugène Grasset and Jean Carriès 1845 Lausanne – Paris 1917 / 1855 Lyon – Paris 1894 Project for The Parsifal Door, after Jean Carriès

Watercolor, ink and gouache on wove paper, ca. 1890 Sheet 380 x 480 mm Literature Amélie Simier, Jean-Carriès, La matière de l’étrange, Paris, 2007, p. 126 and p. 142 (ill.)

Exhibition Paris, Musée du Petit Palais, Jean Carriès, La matière de l’étrange, 2007-08, fig. 1 Provenance Private collection, Belgium

This foremost work by Eugène Grasset offers the only and the best testimony into Jean Carriès creative process of his unfinished work known as La Porte de Parsifal, and still considered as one of the greatest programs in late 19th century French art decorative.

Carriès. Indeed, a scale model and some fragments made for the door – still in existence at the Petit Palais – created by Carriès differed from Grasset’s drawings, illustrating the freedom that the ceramist later took with the original project. Grasset realized a splendid drawing evoking a gothic cathedral mixed with Symbolism topics. The iconographic scheme could refer to Wagner’s universe; where the left side of the door is dedicated to temptress feminine figures, while the right side depicts more anguish men characters. The entire atmosphere of the drawing seems to immerse the door into a 15th century Flemish interior, illuminated in a golden light. The mystery, the symbolism and medieval qualities of the drawing situates Grasset’s work between Pre-Raphaelism and Symbolism movement. Carriès’s interpretation of the project expressed a different emotion and established the artist as one of the most inimitable designer of the time. When he exhibited some fragments of the door to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1892, he received a great success. For the door, Carriès created masks and figures forming a fantastic and hallucinated theatre; grimacing men, fanciful animals, and among them a beautiful and delicate Demoiselle.

In his first sketch (Musée du Petit Palais, Paris), Grasset had represented in the middle of the composition, an elegant woman carrying a large Lily branch and doves in her arms. Her hair was held high and her attitude was royal. In the present version, Grasset and Carries transformed this vision of devotion in a quite different woman: her hair is on her shoulders, her dress floats, and instead of birds and flower she carries a cat. Our drawing illustrates Grasset’s talent to compose a mystical, and bright architectural décor; it announces how Carriès infused a fascinating vitality to this project.

In 1890, the princess of Scey Montbéliard, born Winnaretta Singer, commissioned this monumental sandstone door to the place where the manuscript score of Parsifal by Wagner would be enshrined. This colossal project became the ultimate work of Carriès, on which he worked on exclusively until his death in 1894. The princess’s project was to build an art studio, as well as a meeting place for musicians, painters and poets.

Establishing herself as a patron of the Art, she ordered Carriès this monumental door to inaugurate her new Parisian Salon.

Collaborating with Carries, Eugène Grasset composed the present drawing as a project for the door, the result of several discussions with the princess. Grasset and Carriès were friends and neighbors when they both worked in Boulevard Arago. It was Grasset who encouraged Carriès to work with ceramics, and introduced him to Jean Limet who helped the sculptor to install his first ceramic workshop. Both artists collaborated on this important project since the beginning. A black and white drawing by Grasset bears the following inscription: « Projet de la Porte en céramique de grès pour Jean Carriès à Mme la princesse de Scey-Montbéliard, 16 janvier 1890 » (Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris).

Beside the evidence of the artistic collaboration, our drawing also exemplifies the very different talents of Grasset and 34

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Alexandre Graverol 1865 – Paris – 1949 Paul Verlaine at the Broussais Hospital

Watercolor and ink on wove paper, 1895 Monogrammed lower left AGr, inscribed in pencil lower left Paul Verlaine à l’Hopital B. AGraverol Size 234 x 267 mm Provenance Private collection, The Netherlands

A very fine sheet depicting Paul Verlaine (1844-1896) at the Broussais Hospital in Paris, where he died in January 1896. For the last ten years of his life, Verlaine spent long stays in various hospitals, totalizing more than four years. He suffered from a very painful arthritis in the knees (hence the walking stick on which he is leaning) aggravated by his chronic alcoholism. But another reason was that he was homeless after his mother’s death and suffered from a recurrent lack of money, in spite of his literary fame (he had been elected « Prince des poètes » in 1894). Hospitals offered him free boarding as well as a de facto abstention from alcohol. In Mes Hôpitaux in 1892 Verlaine let many notes describing the structures of the hospitals, touchingly acknowledging how the doctors were kind with him, and the calm atmosphere of the wards where he could read and write peacefully.

motifs, the arabesques surrounding the composition and the women silhouettes remind us of Mucha. The two women, on both borders, could represent the Muses of Poetry and Music, or express the antagonism between old and young, night and day, life and death. Above, an angel and the face of an old woman seem to welcome the poet in the after-life: the angel opening his arm to the poet in heaven, while the allegory of Death, serious and sad, illustrates the fatality of Verlaine’s demise. At the bottom, the face of the evil – with some of Verlaine’s features – incarnates Verlaine’s ambivalent behavior: on the left, a glass of absinth and apples, symbols of sins, on the right, roses and the holy host and chalice, symbols of redemption.

Notwithstanding that Verlaine endured a desolated life, his texts and books had an important success, and he was supported by many officials. Two different plants are encircling the poet: the thistle, symbol of the human suffering and the lily, symbol of the innocence recovered after death.

Graverol transformed Verlaine into a Christianized figure who has suffered, and will raise again through the art. His left finger is pointing to the sky, as a premonition of his death and the path he has chosen. Our drawing captures this reality: while a coachman of hearse with his whip is waiting outside, the poet in his simple room is already turned towards his after-life and his consecration.

Graverol was part of the Symbolist milieu in Paris, as well as in Brussels, and knew many writers of the movement. La Plume dedicated an obituary issue to the poet in February. Another version of the present watercolor, entitled « Entre le Lys et la Rose » was published in this issue. Indeed, Graverol realized five different versions and studies – recorded today - of this drawing. Our version is more linear than the one illustrated in Dennis Cate, Toulouse-Lautrec and La Vie Moderne (2013, p. 300).

The composition is underlined with delicate lines in black ink offering a more legible and sharp image.

Another portrait of Verlaine in the Broussais Hospital was made in 1891 by the painter Aman Jean and is kept at the Museum of Metz, birthplace of Verlaine.

Evoking medieval manuscript illumination, it is also related to Art Nouveau illustrations; the importance given to vegetal

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Louis Welden Hawkins 1849 Esslingen – Paris 1910 Clytie in her sunflowers

Watercolor and pencil on wove paper, ca. 1894 Signed with watercolor lower right L W HAWKINS Sheet 460 x 380 mm Literature Lucas Bonekamp, Louis Welden Hawkins 1849 – 1910, Amsterdam, 1983, p. 37 (see another work related) Provenance Private collection, Belgium

This scene is undoubtedly an allegory of Clytie, often associated to sunflowers, a favorite theme used by the Symbolists. As an Oceanid, a water nymph, Clytie was the lover of the sun god Helios, who eventually deserted her to pursue Leukothea, daughter of Orchamus. Clytie – enraged and wicked – told Leukothea’s father, Orchamus, about her betrayal. He sentenced his daughter to death by burying her alive. Clytie hoped that the death of Leukothea would make Helios to return back to her, but it only made him think even less of her. In the end, Clytie lay herself in the nude for nine days on the rocks, simply staring at the sun, without drinking or eating anything. On the ninth day, she was transformed into a flower, the heliotrope, which turns itself towards the sun.

representations of female nudes in a sunflowers environment: a painting called Les Auréoles that came at Christie’s London in 1989 (fetching an impressive ca. 76,000€ hammer price); and a watercolor usually called Clytie (present whereabouts unknown). Les Auréoles was exhibited at La Libre Esthétique in 1894 in Brussels.

Like many young artist, Hawkins headed for Paris in 1870 and started at the Académie Julian, with Jules Lefèbvre and William Bouguereau. In 1881 he achieved his first great success at the Salon des Artistes Français with Les Orphelins.

In the 1890’s he befriended a large number of Symbolist writers such as Jean Lorrain and Stephane Mallarmé. He also took part in the famous Salon de la Rose+Croix for which he submitted several symbolist works in 1894 and 95. He was highly praised by Péladan.

Playing with the pious and virtuous young women, while they might be satanic, wicked or personification of evil – a recurrent theme in Symbolism –, Hawkins did offer us a very naïve Clytie, nearly incapable of sexual love or dark manipulation. The word “innocence” comes to mind. However, she was the one who aimed for the death of her rival. The present work belongs to a group of three

Symbolist works by Hawkins, paintings and drawings are presently pretty rare on the market, while the majority of works available are from his early naturalistic period. The present piece seems to be still in its original frame (restored), although we cannot assert it.

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Elisabeth Sonrel 1874 Tours – Sceaux 1953 Palm Sunday

Watercolor on laid paper, 1897 Signed and dated with ink lower left Elisabeth Sonrel 1897 Sheet 530 x 910 mm Literature Charlotte Foucher, « Elisabeth Sonrel, une artiste symboliste oubliée », in Bulletin des Amis de Sceaux, no. 25, 2009, p. 3 (ill.) ; Charlotte Foucher, La Vierge, la dame, la muse : une approche des

représentations du féminin dans le symbolisme d’Elisabeth Sonrel, Master’s thesis, Université

François Rabelais de Tours, 2008, p. 36, fig. 60 (related work illustrated) Related works An oil painting representing the exact same subject was exhibited at the Salon des artistes français, in 1897 (unknown location); the same work was used by the Neyret Frères from

Saint-Etienne to create silk pictures (exemplar in the collection of the Rijksmuseum,

Amsterdam and Musée des Arts et de l’Industrie, Saint-Etienne) Provenance Private collection, France

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An astonishing watercolor by Elisabeth Sonrel, who was one of the most enigmatic and talented woman from the symbolist movement. Born in Tours in 1874, she was the daughter of the painter Stéphane Sonrel. First taught by her father, she then moved in 1891 to Paris to train at Académie Julian under Jules Lefebvre’s teaching. She exhibited for the first time at the Salon in 1893. Appreciated by the critics, Sonrel presented her works on several occasions and received honors and medals, such as a bronze medal at the Exposition Universelle in 1900 for her work, Le Sommeil de la Vierge (1895).

Sonrels’ major works were usually influenced by literature and religion, and represented idealistic and beautiful women.

During a trip to Italy – to Rome and Florence –, the artist discovered the art of Botticelli which had a strong impact on her aesthetic vision. The Renaissance character of her images demonstrates the affinity her art shares with Pre-Raphaelite works. Such as the women of Gabriel Rossetti and BurneJones – two artists highly appreciated in the French symbolist circle in the 1890’s – the figures in Sonrel’s artworks, and typical in our drawing, have a medieval charm and evoke a certain mysticism.

Specialized in large watercolors, Sonrel is also renowned for her decorative work. She made postcard, posters, and illustrated books and missals. Her contribution to religious publications is significant and several museums own missals illustrated by Sonrel (e.g. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). In our watercolor, this illustration skill is enlightened in some details visible in the missal hold by the older woman. Through her decorative images, Sonrel also participated to the Art Nouveau.

Her interest for vegetal and floral motives – often used in her compositions – is already visible in the present Palm Sunday in which the boxwood branch occupied a third of the composition.

This depiction of the Christian feast – celebrating the entry of Christ in Jerusalem – offers a rich vision of sacred imagery: the traditional costume of the nuns, the illustrated missal, and the goldish background suggesting the ancient icons. This double portrait illustrates two sides of faith. If the older woman is focused on the palm and the prayer book, the younger one, with her hands in prayer and eyes gazing vaguely, is fixed in an attitude of devotion, even close to an illumination. Reproduced by Neyret Frères from the oil as a silk picture, widely spread in France, the current image got quickly a large success, which demonstrates the charm of this composition by Sonrel.

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Maurice Denis 1870 Granville - Paris 1943 Study for La Visitation

Oil on canvas laid on wood panel, ca. 1894 Studio stamped lower right MAUD Size 20 x 23 cm Provenance Artist’ studio; thence by the artist’s descent

The painting is a study for one of the artist’s major works, La Visitation, and dated from 1894. Presented at the Salon de la Nationale in 1895, it was acquired a few years later by Sergueï Chtchoukine, a famous collector of Matisse and Picasso, and is now kept in the collection of the Hermitage Museum in Saint-Petersburg. Through a religious scene, Denis evoked a moment of his private life, his pregnant wife, Marthe, as the Virgin Mary visiting her pregnant cousin, Elisabeth. The artist married Marthe Meurier a year before, in 1893. The background represents the landscape around their own house, the Villa Montrouge, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye where the couple established itself in July 1893.

are some difference in the background. In our composition, across the arches, a blue and sunny sky overlooks a church, a forest and the usual hills and houses’ silhouettes typical of Villa Montrouge’s surroundings. This bright and lively horizon is more powerfully expressed than with the soft atmosphere composed with paler colors for the final version. The technique used by Denis with dynamic and large touches, evoking a fluid pointillism and a strong Nabis style, also creates a vigorous image. The color palette, the simplicity of the figures, and the almost abstract landscape, make think of early works by Kandinsky around 1909, before his Blaue Reiter period.

Intriguing and playful, our Visitation illustrates how Maurice Denis used to imagine his work, to situate the scene, to compose and to create a complete atmosphere with a few touches of colors. In a freer and liberating expression, the artist represents here one of his favourite subject: women spending time together. Marthe, and her sister Eva, inhabit Denis’s oeuvre, incarnating saints, mothers, and nuns while creating a current connexion between Denis’s works and his intimate circle.

The charming present work offers a first vision of Denis’s project: Mary, on the left is still wearing a hat, while Elisabeth on the left already hold her hands in prayer. Both monumental and dark silhouettes create a strong contrast with the colorful background. Isolated on a terrace, the two women are separated by a central arch, creating an opening towards the landscape. If the arches, the trellis with ivy leaves and the overall composition are similar to the final work, there

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Alexandre Séon 1855 Chazelles-sur-Lyon – Paris 1917 Pélérinage

Colored pencil on laid paper, ca. 1899-1900 Signed with pencil lower right Alex. Séon Sheet 346 x 213 mm Literature Alexandre Séon (1855-1917). La Beauté idéale, Quimper, 2015, p. 267 (about the printed version) Provenance Private collection, Belgium

An enchanting drawing and fine example of the graceful symbolism of Alexandre Séon. The present sheet reflects Séon’s research for delicate and balanced palette of colors; the whole composition is based on the contrast between blue and yellow. The dark blue of the forest, and the golden sky confer to this drawing a supra-natural atmosphere. Angels with Lyre – symbols of Poetry – are floating and animate the scene in a hypnotic rhythm, amplified by the repetition of blue and white thin trees between the figures.

De nombreuses reproductions de photographies, des cul-delampes, des ornements originaux achèvent de faire de cette œuvre une véritable, merveille artistique […] » 2.

Pupil of Henri Lehmann at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1878, he frequented other students such as the symbolist painter Alphonse Osbert or Georges Seurat, who he befriended. Disappointed by the academic education, he left Lehmann’s studio in 1880, and became the disciple of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898). For ten years, Séon was tutored by Puvis de Chavannes who invited him to collaborate on some of his projects, such as the murals for the Pantheon.

This drawing is the project for an illustration of a poem by de Fusty, entitled Pèlerinage (pilgrimage), and published in 1900, in the book Au Pays de l’Astrée1. This refined publication is praised in an article published in Lyon in November 1900: « Des dessins de Rocher, d’Alex Séon, l’original et fier artiste stéphanois, […], Carolus Duran, Valadou, etc., etc., ornent un texte tiré sur papier deluxe et imprimé en encre violette.

1 G. de Fusty, David Cigalier, Au pays de l’Astrée, Saint Etienne, 1900.

2 Jean Bach-Sisley, « Au paysde l’Astrée », in Le Passe-temps et le

Parterre, no. 44, 11 November 1900, p. 4.

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Georges de Feure 1868 – Paris – 1943 Les Chercheuses d’infini

Watercolor and gouache on wove paper, ca. 1900-02 Signed lower right in pencil De Feure Sheet 500 x 360 mm Literature Henri Frantz, « George De Feure », in Le Figaro illustré, no. 119, special issue, February 1900, p. 38; Prince Bojidar Karageorgévitch, « La Toilette féminine comprise par les artistes », in

L’Art Décoratif, no. 52, January 1903, p. 23 (ill.) ; Ian Millman, Georges de Feure. Maître du

Symbolisme et de l’Art Nouveau, Paris, 1992, p. 202 (ill.)

Exhibition The Hague, Haagsche Kunstkring, Tentoonstelling van Schilderijen, Aquarellen, Teekeningen en

Kunstvoorwerpen door George de Feure, 1903, no. 47; London, Hayward Gallery, French Symbolist

Painters, 1972, no. 61 (ill.); Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, George de Feure, 1868-1943, 1993-94,

no. 45, p. 59 (ill.); Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Musée départemental Maurice Denis-« Le Prieuré »,

Georges de Feure: du symbolisme à l’art nouveau (1890-1905), 1995 Provenance Alain Lesieutre, Paris; Private collection, France

Les Chercheuses d’infini expresses Georges de Feure’s great passion for Baudelaire, as well as a key work in the evolution of the Symbolist art of de Feure. The title was first mentioned in a special issue of the Figaro illustré entirely dedicated to de Feure and published in 1900. In this important publication about the artist, Henri Frantz wrote: « Dans ses premiers tableaux, M. de Feure fut tellement sous l’influence de Baudelaire, qu’il se contenta le plus souvent de le paraphraser » [“In his first paintings, de Feure was so intensely under the influence of Baudelaire that he would often content himself with simply paraphrasing the poet”]. However, the feminine figures represented in our drawing, differ from de Feure’s earlier depiction of Baudelaire’s women: the dangerous temptress and diabolical goddess are transformed into a couple of tender and delicate silhouettes. If the female couple was a recurrent motif in de Feure’s art, the nude embracing bodies of the earlier works evolved into well-dressed women gently holding hands.

As a center of the Art Nouveau culture in Paris, Bing’s gallery presented the present work in The Hague at the occasion of a traveling exhibition dedicated to de Feure in 1903. Engaged in the decorative art movement, de Feure’s distanced himself from pure symbolist work to insert graphic design into his composition. The detailed and very fine dresses worn by the present feminine figures, exemplify the artist’s new focus on ornamental art and Art Nouveau motives. The colorful gowns form a beautiful contrast with the grey background, produced with ink and wash, evoking a Japanese print. The overall subject of these two lovers, on the edge of a precipice, still reflects the main theme of Baudelaire’s Les Femmes damnées: an impossible love without any escape. This sheet offers a symbolic atmosphere enriched with Art Nouveau aesthetic, while de Feure’s complexity and personal vision pervades this masterful drawing.

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Carlos Schwabe 1866 Hamburg – Avon 1926 Angel with Lyre

Watercolor and pencil on wove paper, 1900 Signed and dated in pencil lower right Carlos Schwabe 1900 Sheet 286 x 210 mm Literature Jean-David Jumeau-Lafond, Carlos Schwabe : symboliste et visionnaire, Paris, 1994, p. 126 (ill.)

Provenance Private collection, The Netherlands

A splendid Angel with Lyre by Carlos Schwabe, offering a symbolist vision of the subject. Schwabe greatly contributed to the Symbolist movement by his works and his illustrations for books by authors such as Baudelaire or Mallarmé. The artist, born in Germany but raised in Geneva, met Joséphin Péladan during his first visit to Paris in 1890. The latter, founder of La Rose+Croix, organized six Salon from 1892 to 1897 in order to promote the arts as an esoteric mission. It included artists such as Jean Delville, Armand Point and Alexandre Séon.

Schwabe was a member from the first hour and designed the poster for the first Salon de la Rose+Croix in 1892, the only issue to which he participated.

Schwabe successfully borrowed classical subject from antic mythology or Christian iconography, by giving them a symbolist twist. The Lyre, symbol of the Poet, appears to be a key object in Schwabe’s oeuvre from 1900 to 1908 and various works. The present one might be its first inclusion, which will lead to L’Eternelle Chimère (1901-02, private coll.) and his major painting Homer at the Champs-Elysées (1903, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Genève). Passionate by music, Schwabe expressed the idealist inspiration of the instrument.

The present angel is playing it while gazing at the spectator over her shoulders, almost as a temptress. We succumb to this enchanting music and beautiful apparition.

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Armand Rassenfosse 1862 – Liège – 1934 Study for Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire

Pencil and pastel on laid paper, 1898 With monogram AR in a square and dated 1898 Sheet 247 x 176 mm Provenance Private collection, Belgium

A striking symbolist sheet by Armand Rassenfosse, as a prelude to his titanic work of illustrating Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, published in 1899 by Les Cents Bibliophiles. It took four years to Rassenfosse to achieve this illustrated work, made up of 167 images. Quite a few preliminary drawings to the illustrations still exist but most of them are of smaller scale, closer to the definitive scale in the publication. Only a few large scale drawings survive, including the present sheet. In the book, several pictures represent a woman seen in bust, nakedshoulders, and intensively looking. The hairs are sometime untidy, sometime nicely done. The woman face depicted on page 122 is certainly the closest picture to the present work.

His numerous prints and illustrations for various books were pretty well appraised in Paris and Brussels, although he often collaborated with others, as for instance Rops and Donnay.

Moreover, his drawings in Le Courrier Français made him next to the best illustrators of the time. Furthermore, in 1896, the Mercure de France asked Rassenfosse to illustrate its annual 1897 Almanach des Poètes, a definite recognition for the artist.

The Mercure was very close to the symbolist circle of Alfred Valette and his famous wife Rachilde, Jean Moréas, Remy de Gourmont, Louis Dumur, Jules Renard and Alfred Jarry. Until then, Rassenfosse had played a light symbolism with nice ladies, young and/or naked, often smiling, with the Death appearing only here and there. In contrast, in les Fleurs du Mal, he moved to dark side, with an intense expression facing the reader, a very powerful example of Symbolism.

When the order for Les Fleurs du Mal arrived in 1896 from Eugène Rodrigues, the president of Les Cents Bibliophiles, Rassenfosse was the emerging artist in the field of illustrations.

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Manuel Orazi Rome 1860 – Paris 1934 Woman

Pencil, color and silver gouache on thick wove paper, ca. 1900 Signed with pencil lower right ORAZI, with inscribed symbols, with an inscription on the back First Angel Story most probably by another hand Sheet 239 x 172 mm Provenance Private collection, France

Touching drawing expressing also the ability of Orazi for intimate work. Born in Italy, Manuel Orazi started his career in 1892 in Paris. His talents as illustrator and poster artist led him to regularly contribute to various Parisian theatres and periodicals, like Je sais tout, Le Figaro Illustré and L’assiette au Beurre, and often linked to Baudelaire, Allan Poe, Wilde or Louïs’s texts. Influenced by Japanese art, attracted by the aesthetic innovations of Symbolism and Modern Style, Orazi was approached by Siegfried Bing in 1895 when he opened his Parisian art gallery L’Art Nouveau. He realized for Bing the illustrations of the impressive Calendrier Magique oriented towards mysticism and astrology, recurrent themes of the artist.

This rare drawing shows another side of his talent, less caricatural and more symbolist. The woman folded on herself, hiding her face entirely, expresses her desire for isolation, or a moment of desolation. The shapes around her become a visualisation of her reverie. The silver touches that shine on the left side and on the top of the image, increase this feeling of oneiric atmosphere, or even sacred. Inspired by natural shapes such as plants and flowers, Orazi applies his Art Nouveau vocabulary to offer an original image of femininity: far from the sensual women and mystical witches of his usual illustrations.

For unknown reasons as far as we know, Orazi surviving works are small. This is a fine example of his art and maestria.

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Armand Point 1861 Algiers – Naples 1932 Reclining nude

Red chalk on wove paper, ca. 1898-99 Signed with chalk lower right A. Point Sheet 335 x 615 mm Provenance Private collection, Belgium

A very fine and delicate example of Armand Point’s red chalk works. After a period dedicated to Orientalism depicting scenes from his childhood in Algeria or from his military service in Tunisia, the interest of Point evolved towards symbolist representations. Ideas such as femininity, muses, Christian themes or mythology were highlighted. But – especially for Point – this went through the prism of his fascination for the Renaissance.

modelled faces. His works then recall the studies of delicate faces by Da Vinci, as well as the simplicity of the bodies of the graces in Boticelli’s Primavera. At the time of this work, Point was no longer a member of the La Rose-Croix, since 1897. The group and the artist evolved in diverging opinions. Point believed in the search of an idealization and harmonious proportions, and he criticized the lack of religious inspiration within the group.

On the other side, he was himself reproached for his obsession for eternal beauty.

Since his first trip to Italy in 1894, Point was appealed by the works of Renaissance artists such as Boticelli, Masolino, Masaccio, Gozzoli and Michelangelo. It was a turning point, notably about the technique used, red chalk. Also Point successfully aimed to combine the study of harmonious human bodies and serene emotional expressions through beautifully

The reclining woman could be his muse and companion Hélène Linder, met in 1891 who posed many times for the artist. This present sheet is a reminiscence of Time passes and Beauty survives (private collection) dated 1899. The woman reclines and holds her hands the same manner, but she wears a fine dress.

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Jean Delville 1867 Louvain – Brussels 1953 The Angel of Glory

Pencil and black chalk on laid paper, ca. 1899 Sheet 779 x 535 mm Exhibition Namur, Musée Félicien-Rops, Jean Delville (1867-1953) Maître de l’idéal, 2014, p. 38 (ill.)

Provenance Caroline and Maurice Verbaet, Antwerp

A very large and superb Delville drawing, a pure and rare symbolist work made in circa 1899. Jean Delville, both as a visual artist and a poet, animated the cultural life of Brussels.

Follower of the Cabbala, Delville was drawn to the hermetic philosophy of Villiers de l’Isles-Adam and the occultism of Joséphine Péladan, who was a practitioner of magic and founded the Salon Rose+Croix for the exhibition of idealist art. In 1892 Delville opened the Salon pour l’Art in Brussels, which became an important exhibition space for symbolist artists. Rodin, Gallé and Puvis de Chauvannes were among the exhibitors. In the same breath he founded the Pour L’Art, an association of the major Belgian symbolists. Then the artist opened the Salon de l’Art Idéaliste in 1896 and continued to exhibit art with occultism. Delville later succeeded McIntosh as the director of the Glasgow School of Arts and was professor at the Brussels Academy from 1905-1937 (after Donald Friedman, in Les XX and the Belgian avant-Garde: Prints, Drawings, and Books ca 1890, Kansas City, 1992, p. 171).

lay on the left foreground, protected from the battlefield by huge cats and dogs. The main character, with a large bear, looks calmly at the ground. The two other figures seem suffering a lot while protecting themselves from the rays of the Angel of Glory. The latter dominates the whole scene by his radiant wings, unrestricted by the temple walls. The light shining from this immaterial figure seems to blow out the flame of a funeral pyre in the background, while snakes run away. The contrast between the dark and gloomy field covered with piling-up corpses and the glorious apparition is outstanding. Though its symbolism remains unclear, it suggests more the Angel of the Resurrection than the one of the Last Judgment. It is hard to determinate a contemporary literary source for the present composition. At the beginning of his career, between 1890 and 1900, probably the best of his production, Delville drew quite a few subjects after the Wagner operas, notably Parsifal, and Tristan and Iseult. Later, he was much influenced by Péladan’s works like Androgyn, and by scenes of Villiers de L’Isles d’Adam’s Axël. The French writer was a proponent of the occultist revival and a father for the symbolists.

The Angel of Glory illuminates a graveyard full of humans, under the vaults of a large antique palace or temple. Three figures

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Charles-Victor Guilloux 1866 – Paris – 1946 River Landscape at Sunset

Oil on cardboard, ca. 1892-94 Signed lower right C. Guilloux Size 13.4 x 26.7 cm Provenance Private collection, France

A gem by Charles Guilloux that holds the seductive colors of the artist. Guilloux, discovered by the critic Roger Marx in 1891, achieved his recognition with a very personal artistic vision. As Seurat, he was passionate by the color’s theories developed by the chemist MichelErnest Chevreul. He also learned from neo-impressionist paintings, as well as from the Nabis and impressionist works at the Salon.

Depicting landscapes around Paris and in Brittany, his researches brought him to a radical evolution in 1892. He developed an extreme simplification of landscapes: a succession of colored surfaces inhabited by various silhouettes standing out in contrast with a bright sky animated by fantastic clouds. At the Salon des Indépendant of 1892, his synthetized landscapes were celebrated by the critics, and eight of them were sold during the Salon. The present symbolist river landscape painted during the same period, also evokes the powerful luminous atmosphere of sunset. The combination yellow-violet, visible in our work, is often mentioned in his notes, and associated with the word « magnifique » [splendid]. Guilloux was obsessed by what he called « les bonne combinaisons d’émotions » [the good combination of emotions], and he used for this a very personal palette of colors. Such peculiar and extraordinary sceneries only exist in Guilloux’s oeuvre.

From 1892, he exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants, as well as in the avant-garde gallery Le Barc de Boutteville, along with Paul Signac, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and the Nabis. While he possessed the chromatic knowledge of Seurat, and understood Monet’s research about the visual sensation of the atmosphere, he gathered these influences to create his own aesthetic universe.

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Eugène Carrière 1849 Gournay-sur-Marne – Paris 1906 Landscape

Oil on canvas, ca. 1900-03 Stamped signature lower right Eugène Carrière Size 27.5 x 37 cm Reference Rodolphe Rapetti (dir.), Eugène Carrière, 1849 - 1906, catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre peint, Paris,

2008, no. 1062, p. 315 (ill.)

Provenance Private collection, France

This symbolist landscape illustrates Eugène Carrière’s singular vision of the Nature. The artist is usually celebrated for his symbolist portraits that offer an enigmatic representation of his intimate circle. Carrière’s landscapes are less known, although they are an essential part of his oeuvre and they reveal a most personal perception.

From 1893, Carrière produced landscapes during his travels through Brittany, Italy and Belgium, or across the countryside surrounding Paris. However, it is difficult, if not impossible, to link these works to known places or a particular scenery, as Carrière always depicted nature by only a few elements. In the present work, the landscape is even minimalist, composed of vague trees and hills.

This simplification and this quest for the quintessence of

landscape testifies the influence of the Nabis on the artist, and more particularly their so-called Paysages synthétiques.

The landscape genre played an important role in Carrière’s aesthetic evolution.

Through these monochrome representations of Nature, he experienced new ways to refine the texture of the layers of paint used, which are very thin and also let see the canvas surface, something purposefully searched for. The wavy lines used give energy and life to the composition. Trees, horizon, clouds or hills, every items are produced with these same lines, and gathered into one unifying environment, a place that floats in an imprecise atmosphere. This movement contrasts with the absence of any figure, an absence highly evocative of silence.

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William de Degouve de Nuncques 1867 Monthermé – Stavelot 1935 The Servants of Death (Nocturne)

Pastel on wove paper, ca. 1897 Monogramed lower right W D de N Sheet 480 x 945 mm Literature Denis Laoureux, William Degouve de Nuncque : maîtres du mystère, Namur, 2012, p. 112 (ill.);

Suzanne Folds McCullagh, Dreams & Echoes: Drawings and Sculptures in the David and

Celia Hilliard Collection, Chicago, 2013, p. 160 (related work illustrated) Provenance Private collection, Belgium

This is one of the largest and most powerful pastel ever seen from William Degouve de Nuncques. The mystery and chilling effects emanating from our sheet, make of this work a masterful example of the Belgian Symbolist movement. The artist produced two versions of The Servants of Death, one of which is on display at the Art Institute of Chicago. Both pastels depict the same subject and fantastic scenery. In comparison, the Chicago version shows a range of red and orange colors indicating the light at dawn, while this version presents a darker palette illustrating a night scene, very representative of his work between 1895 and 1898. The technique of pastel and the style are here very close to other pastels of this period, especially this way of representing trees and forests, such as the Intérieur de Forêt (1894, Musée de l’Ecole de Nancy), Le Cygne Noir (1895, Kröller-Müller Museum). Technically, Degouve successfully composed a nocturnal atmosphere in a harmony of dark blue and green, with exquisite touches of pink and purple. The spectator is invited to explore this decor, enter the forest, discover what the shadows hide, and sense the intensity of the scene.

the present composition. Everything is here: the nocturne atmosphere in a dim forest, the macabre scene of the two gloomy figures working in the darkness, one of which seems to emerge stunned from the underworld, the light reflecting on the teeth of the handsaw, the unclear impression balancing between dream-like nature and nightmarish scenario, and the opposition between the dismal reaction and the soothing feeling driven by the subtle pink shades in the background.

The chromaticism of nocturne as the musical model used by Debussy, Fauré and d’Indy is obvious.

Being born into a wealthy, aristocratic family, Degouve de Nuncques was able to indulge his interests in painting and music without material constraints. Although self-taught, he was advised by Jan Toorop, with whom he shared a studio, and later lived with the off-screen artist, Henry de Groux. Verhaeren’s poetry and Degouve’s art shared many concerns, and both essentially sought to transfigure reality in the sense that it affords a view of the invisible.

Degouve in particular wanted to create works that transfigure the everyday and metamorphose the real into something magic and surreal. Exhibited at Belgian avant-garde Salon Les XX, he was also a regular exhibitor in Paris where he was championed by Puvis de Chavannes and Maurice Denis. His paintings are considered to have been a significant influence on Surrealism and the paintings of René Magritte.

The subject area is typical for Degouve in the years 189498 and the link to the Symbolist poetry is obvious through the Trilogie noire of Verhaeren (Soirs (1887), Débacles (1888) and Flambeaux noirs (1891)), poems by Maeterlinck and Rodenbach. Degouve’s own poems could also be adduced for

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Maurice Denis 1870 Granville – Paris 1943 Lake at Le Vésinet

Oil on cardboard, ca. 1896 Studio stamped lower left MAUD Size 26 x 20 cm Exhibition Albi, Musée Toulouse Lautrec, 1963, no. 52 (under the title « Le Parc »), p. 29 Provenance Artist’s studio; thence by the artist’s descent

A peaceful landscape during Maurice Denis’s stay in the town of Le Vésinet. The artist found new inspiration in this region close to his studio at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where his art also reached a new level of size, much more monumental. He realized his first mural decorations at Le Vésinet: in 1898-99 for the chapel of the College Sainte-Croix (Musée d’Orsay, Paris), and in 1901-03 for the choir of the Saint-Marguerite Church (still visible in the church). Denis created a new religious monumental art which contributed to his popularity.

However, Lake at Le Vésinet reveals another side of Denis’s art: the contemplation of Nature.

The present work is dedicated to Nature; even the background and the horizon are filled with vegetation, a glimpse at the Garden of Eden. But, the entire composition demonstrates how painting was also for him about texture and colors: The river in the foreground shows long brush strokes building a horizontal surface, while the contrast of colors suggests the depth of the water. Also influenced by Impressionist landscapes, Denis created a luminous environment populated by silhouettes shaped in only a few touches of colors. Our piece is thus an example of his most famous aphorism: “A painting is essentially a plane surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order”.

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Alexandre Séon 1855 Chazelles-sur-Lyon – Paris 1917 Bréhat Island

Oil on wood panel, ca. 1903 Signed lower right Alex. Séon.

Size 16 x 24.5 cm Exhibition The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, Le paysage symboliste en France 1880-1910, 2010-11, p. 69 (ill.);

Quimper, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper, Alexandre Séon (1855-1917). La Beauté idéale, 2015,

no. 11, p. 89 (ill.)

Provenance Private collection, The Netherlands

« Je file à Bréhat où je veux dévorer le ciel, la mer et les beaux terrains fleuris »1. [I am rushing to the Island of Bréhat, where I can devour the sky, the sea and the nice lands full of flowers]

twenty-five marines painted by the artist in Bréhat. They are highly searched out. During his explorations, he sketched preparatory drawings with indications about coloring and pictorial effects. If the small format would have make them easy to bring along, he had probably painted these wood panels in his studio. However, to reach his house from Paris, the travel was very long, and the material was not easily transportable, which explained the compact dimension of these supports. Séon did not consider these small landscapes as studies but as finished works that he exhibited on many occasions between 1909 and 1914.

In 1890, Alexandre Séon discovered Bréhat, probably thanks to Joséphin Péladan. He was inspired by this island for the rest of his life. His first representation of Bréhat was the illustration for Pélandan’s L’Androgyne, published the same year. Bréhat is recognizable by these series of islands as if they were in suspension between the sea and the sky. This obviously incarnated the mystical Nature imagined by Péladan and the artists of the Rose + Croix, including Séon.

The artist went regularly to the Island since 1894 and staid in a small fisher’s house ideally situated, that he bought in 1901 and named “Simplicity House”.

A very poetic landscape. This work is a testimony of the artist’s life-long fascination for Bréhat.

1 Letter from Séon to Roger-Milès in July 1902, quoted in Quimper,

When staying on the island, Séon explored the whole region. Always of small dimensions, there are less than

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper, Alexandre Séon (1855-1917). La

Beauté idéale, 2015, p. 250.

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Maurice Denis 1870 Granville – Paris 1943 Portrait of Auguste Renoir and Miss Jeanne Baudot

Oil on cardboard, ca. 1906 Size 27.2 x 20.3 cm Literature Maurice Denis, Journal, t. II (1905-1920), Paris, 1957, p. 144 (ill.)

Exhibition Paris, Les Arts Décoratifs, Maurice Denis 1888-1924, 1924, no. 223 ; Paris, Musée National

d’Art Moderne, Maurice Denis, 1945, no. 107 ; Albi, Musée Toulouse Lautrec, Maurice Denis, 1963,

no. 132, p. 40 ; Paris, Musée de l’Orangerie, Maurice Denis, 1970, no. 208, p. 70; Paris; Los Angeles;

Philadelphia, Grand Palais; LACMA; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Renoir in the 20th century,

2009-10, no. 114, pp. 224-25 (ill.)

Provenance Thence by the artist’s descent

Maurice Denis illustrated in this double portrait his attachment to thee impressionist’s master. August Renoir is represented in company of his student, Jeanne Baudot. She was the daughter of Renoir’s doctor in Louveciennes, met the artist in 1893 and became his student. In her book, Renoir, ses amis, ses modèles (1949), Jeanne recalled that she introduced Maurice Denis to Renoir around 1897. Dominique Denis and Anne Gruson have suggested, in the catalogue of the Grand Palais exhibition, to date this double portrait ca. 1906, due to the work’s style and historic context. From 1897, Maurice Denis regularly mentioned Renoir in his journal and wrote about two of his visits at the artist’s house in Cagnes; one in 1906 with Roussel, and a second in 1913.

The contrast of colors expresses the same ambivalence: Renoir’s face is illuminated as touched by a sacred glow, while the rest of the painting is painted in a darker palette.

The style of the present work is closer to Denis’s Nabis period and especially shows Vuillard’s influence: the silhouettes, as well as the décor, are formed with plane colored surfaces animated with luminous touches.

However, the chiaroscuro and especially the soft pink in the background are characteristics of Denis’s paintings, inspired by his fascination for the Italian Renaissance. Dominated by portraits of women and children, it is rare to find a portrait of a man in Denis’s oeuvre.

This portrait illustrates Denis’s ambiguous relationship with Renoir. As a representative of post-impressionism, Denis belonged to the generation of artists who inherited from the impressionists but evolved towards a new vision and more innovative images. After Renoir’s death, Denis wrote an article entitled « La Mort de Renoir » (Renoir’s death) published in La Vie on February 1st 1920. Such homage, as well as the numerous mentions of Renoir in his journal, testifies of Denis’s true esteem for Renoir. However, he wanted also to take distance from Renoir’s aesthetic, by following Gauguin’s influence and contributing to the Nabis group.

The strength and originality of this portrait is its balance between paying tribute to the master, while depicting Renoir’s old age and frailty. The presence of Jeanne Baudot, standing up, symbolizing a new generation of artists while being Renoir’s own student - emphasizes this double aspect.

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Christophe Henri Karel de Nerée Tot Babberich 1880 Babberich – 1909 Todtmoos Portrait of Madame S. Pencil on wove paper, ca. 1900 Sheet 560 x 319 mm Literature Robert Rahier, Carel de Nerée Tot Babberich (1880-1909), Kleve, 1975 Exhibition Basel, Internationale Kunstmesse, Art 13’82, June 1982 Provenance The Piccadilly Gallery, London (1893); Private collection, The Netherlands

Works by Karel de Nerée still in private hands are of a great rarity. Only a few works came to auctions in the last thirty years. This brilliant sheet from symbolist inspiration is certainly one of the best. It can be dated early ca. 1900 before the artist became strongly influenced by Audrey Beardsley.

mostly kept to himself. Due to his poor health, drawing became ever more difficult after 1906-1907. After his death, several exhibitions devoted to him in Holland – the first in Den Haag in 1910 – arose great enthusiasm and admiration from critics and visitors, and it was the same during the following decades, for example in 1926 (see article by Just Havelaar in Het Vaderland, 27 Oct. 1926) or in 1934 (see article

by W. Jos de Ruyter in Het Vaderland, 29 Nov. 1934). High appreciation of his work spread to Germany and Italy, but he remained virtually unknown in France or Belgium.

Karel de Nerée had a very brief artistic career, not more than ten years, as he died when he was twenty-nine. His early work – as the present sheet – was first influenced by his two compatriots, Thorn-Prikker and Toorop, and by the FrenchDutch Georges de Feure. But de Nerée was also a writer and he was very much moved by decadent and symbolist authors such as Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine and Gabriele d’Annunzio,

by Dutch and German poets as Herman Gorter and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Some of his early drawings were even inspired directly by contemporary novels as Extase of Louis Couperus, Le Jardin des supplices of Octave Mirabeau, and poems by Mallarmé and Tristan Corbière.

From a typical Symbolist approach, de Nerée saw the woman from two opposite points of view: either as the evil woman using her beauty to seduce men to their loss – femme fatale, or as the innocent and young woman – femme fragile – The latter was then the symbol of mysterious and spiritual love, female chastity and purity, the type of women de Nerée might have seen in his then-beloved Claartje Rijnbende. After the break-up of their relationship in 1901, the femme fragile type disappeared from de Nerée’s work.

From 1901, the influence of Beardsley was all-embracing his works, to the extent that he is still called “the Dutch Aubrey Beardsley”. During his life he did not exhibit; he was a wellknown society figure but few knew his art work which he

The title dates from the Piccadilly Gallery ownership in the 1980’s. We have not been able to trace its origin.

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Frantisek Kupka 1871 Opocno – Puteaux 1957 Black Idol or Defiance

Watercolor, gouache and white heightening on laid paper, ca. 1900-02 Signed middle right in red pencil KUPKA Sheet 560 x 470 mm Literature About aquatints: Denise Fédit, L’œuvre de Kupka, Paris, 1966, no. 1, p. 29 (ill.);

Ludmila Vachtova, Frank Kupka: Pioneer of Abstract Art, add. no. I; Frantisek Kupka,

A Restrospective, Guggebheim Museum, New York, 1975, no 3; Frantisek Kupka ou l’invention

d’une abstraction, Musée d’art modern, Paris, 1990, no. 16 (ill.); Vers des temps nouveaux, Kupka,

œuvres graphiques 1894-1912, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, 2002, no. 6; Pierre Brullé and

Marketa Theinhardt, Frantisek Kupka, Le chemin vers Amorpha, Les Salons de Kupka 1899-1913,

Prague, 2012, no. 4 Provenance Private collection, London; Private collection, USA

Most probably the most important sheet remaining in private hands by Kupka from his early years in Paris, when he was deeply invested in the Symbolism movement. The present work was later transposed into aquatints. Among the several titles of the aquatints, the Prague version is called La Résistance, the Paris one L’Entêtement, and photographs which remained in Kupka’s possession were marked La Révolte. All seemed to mean essentially the same thing to Kupka, best translated in English as Defiance, though all these titles were probably added somewhat later. The aquatint is an illustration for Poe’s “Dream-land” in which the first stanza reads:

the central part of the triptych. As far as we can assert, these three works are only known in colored prints (see at Centre Georges-Pompidou, Guggenheim Museum, Prague National Gallery). The present sheet is the only original drawing.

According to Denise Fédit (1966), this drawing could be derived from a painting in the “Magre collection”, executed in 1900. Its present whereabouts however remains unknown.

Another graphite version, smaller and mainly with black and white colors, also remains in private hands (see Emmanuel Siblik, Frantisek Kupka, Prague, 1928, p. 124). At present, it would seem that there are no drawings of this subject in museum collections.

By a route obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright, I have reached these lands but newly, From an ultimate dim Thule — From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, Out of SPACE— out of TIME.

Kupka’s interest in the Occult began when he was living in Bohemia. After his training in Prague and then Venice, the painter moved to Paris in 1896, aware of the different Occult tendencies then in full swing. Edgar Allan Poe was at the time the great master of Romanticism and apologist of the depths.

In this text, Poe’s biographer, Arthur Hobson Quinn, notes that each sentence contributes to a unique impression: that of a traveler wandering between life and death. Kupka sought to convey this feeling in this work. A disturbing sphinx presides over a gloomy Walhalla above a field of sharp ice in which a lone figure is stranded. Kupka’s attraction for parallel worlds and mysteries is evident here and confirms his genuine knowledge of symbolist vocabulary. If Kupka is reputed as being one of the initiators of abstraction, the master of Orphism, and founding member of the Section d’Or, this drawing emphasizes rather his darker side, as an esoteric symbolist, who will later fascinate the Surrealists and anti-modernist aesthetic movements.

Around 1900, Kupka continued working on the symbolist projects he started in Vienna. Some of these works on paper, dated between 1900 and 1903, constitute an ensemble or cycle.

Black Idol was certainly conceived as part of a printed triptych (see cat. Musée d’Orsay 2002, pp. 30-31). Black Idol would be the left panel. La Voie du silence, which depicts a pilgrim walking on an endless road flanked by Sphinxes under a starry sky, would supposedly be the right panel. Le Commencement de la vie – a landscape of water lilies, where the figure of an embryo blooms out of a Lotus flower and a radiant circle – would form 74

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Jan Toorop 1858 Poerworedjo – The Hague 1928 Design for the Saint-Aloysius Chapel, Haarlem

Color pencils and pastel on wove paper, ca. 1905-06 Signed lower left in pencil J A Toorop and annotated lower right St. Aloysius comme enfant devant la Sainte VIERGE Sheet 350 x 245 mm Literature Antoon Erftemeijer, Getooid als een bruid. De nieuwe Sint-Bavokathedraal te Haarlem, Haarlem, 1998, pp. 231-33 Provenance Private collection, The Netherlands

Certainly one of the earliest works inspired by the artist’s Catholic faith. In 1905-06 he made a set of five scenes from the lives of saints in ceramics for the Gothic niches in the chapel of St. Aloysius in the newly completed Catholic Church of St. Bavo in Haarlem. At this time, he only produced religious works for the Stock Exchange in Amsterdam in 1904, and small reliefs in embossed metal, mainly copper. Toorop officially became a Catholic in 1905. He had long been searching for a faith that would give him peace and security. There were undoubtedly all sorts of influences at work here, but the most decisive factor must have been his need for a concrete symbolism

rooted in a living powerful tradition, a need which was further stimulated by friends in Paris such as the painter Maurice Denis and the composer Vincent d’Indy. Toorop never lost his Catholic faith after that.

The five scenes represent the good Deeds, as for instance the Love of God, the Charity, the Poverty, etc. They were fired at the fabric Rozenburg (The Hague) in 1906 and put in place in the church in 1908. However, the present drawing, as well as two other studies representing St. Aloysius sick, was most likely designed for another project – probably the church windows – but it was never realized and completed.

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Fernand Khnopff 1858 – Brussels – 1921 Mélisande

Pastel and color pencils on wove paper, ca. 1906-07 Signed and titled with pencil lower left MELISANDE Fernand Khnopff Sheet 500 x 270 mm Exhibition Liège, Musée de l’Art Wallon, Splendeurs de l’Idéal, 1997, p. 109 (ill.); Tokyo, Bunkamura

Museum of Art, Belgian Symbolism, 2005; Namur, Musée Félicien Rops, Le Musée imaginaire

de Maurice Maeterlinck, 2008; Brussels, Musées royaux des Beuax-Arts de Belgique,

Le Symbolisme en Belgique, 2010, p. 165 (ill.); Gent, Museum voor Schone Kunsten,

Minne – Maeterlinck. L’univers de George Minne et Maurice Maeterlinck, 2011-12, cat. 58, p. 141 (ill.)

Provenance Private collection, Belgium

A wonderful drawing by Fernand Khnopff representing the symbolist figure of Mélisande, created by Maurice Maeterlinck.

The artist and the poet were both part of the same cultural avant-garde in Brussels and collaborated on the opera Pelléas and Mélisande by Claude Debussy after the play of Maeterlinck (creation in 1893), and performed in 1907 at La Monnaie in Brussels. Khnopff made the costumes for it.

The ring, the crown, the fountain: Maeterlinck inserted many round figures. Our drawing seems to illustrate a specific moment in the play associated to one of these objects: Mélisande lost the ring that Golaud gave to her (see below). Symbol of her submission to a man that she does not love, the ring “fell” from her hand into a cave. The way the woman leans and looks down associated with the inscription that Khnopff encircled on the bottom of our sheet “Elle est perdue, perdue” [it is lost, lost] suggest that we witness the moment when she lost her ring.

The present work is a testimony of the strong influence that literature, theatre and music had on Fernand Khnopff.

It is interesting to compare our drawing to another version, similar to ours but smaller and much darker, kept in the collection of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels. Our sheet offers touches of colors that enrich the composition: a braid enlightens Mélisande’s hair and she is wearing a dress with delicate blue motifs. The most striking dissimilarity is the overall composition and the wide blank margin left by Khnopff bellow his drawing.

Khnopff signed the Brussels work just under his drawing of Mélisande, but decided to inscribed, titled and signed our work on the bottom of the sheet, leaving a vast void occupying half of the layout. This particular arrangement reflects Khnopff’s talent to represent the key ingredient of Maeterlinck’s universe: silence and isolation, but also a wonderful talent of mise-en-page.

Golaud

Mélisande Golaud Mélisande Golaud

Mélisande

Symbol of this isolation, the circle is a recurring motif in Pelléas and Mélisande, as well as in the work of Khnopff.

-[…]Voyons, donne-moi ta main; donne-moi tes deux petites mains.

Il lui prend les mains.

Oh ! ces petites mains que je pourrais écraser comme des fleurs...

-Tiens, où est l’anneau que je t’avais donné ?

-L’anneau ?

-Oui; la bague de nos noces, où est-elle?

-Je crois... Je crois qu’elle est tombée...

-Tombée ?

-Où est-elle tombée ?

-Tu ne l’as pas perdue ?

-Non, non ; elle est tombée... elle doit être tombée... mais je sais où elle est...

(Maurice Maeterlinck, Pelléas et Mélisande, 1893, Acte II, scène 2)

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Gustav Klimt 1862 – Vienna – 1918 Profil des “Wohlgerüsteten Starken” und verzweifelter, sitzender Mann, für Beethovenfries Study of two figures for the Beethoven Frieze Black pencil on wove paper, 1902 Signed with pencil lower right G. KLIMT Sheet 450 x 313 mm Reference Strobl no. 765; Dobai no. 127 Exhibition Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Experiment Weltuntergang Wien um 1900, 1981, p. 42 (ill.);

Brussels, Musée d’Ixelles, Le Sphinx de Vienne. Sigmund Freud, l’art et l’archéologie, 1993,

p. 41 (ill.); Berlin; Linz, Bröhan-Museum; Schlossmuseum, Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka, Kubin,

2004-05, p. 41 (ill.)

Provenance Carl Reininghaus, Vienna (his initial lower right “R”); Christian M. Nebehay Ges.m.b.H., Wien;

Private collection, Germany

An impressive drawing linked to the Klimt’s Beethoven Friez exhibited at the Vienna Secession in 1902. Conceptualized as a “global work of art”, the artists of the Secession organized an exhibition around a statue of Beethoven made by Max Klinger; the sculpture occupied the middle of the room surrounded by works of other artists on the same theme. Gustav Klimt presented his Beethoven frieze on three walls, on the left of the room, a symbolic paraphrase of the ninth symphony of the composer.

and dynamic flow of lines is characteristic of Klimt’s talent to capture the emotion embodied in the figures. This sketch offers two antagonistic figures – the strong and the weak – and suggests that Klimt imagined and worked these two subjects simultaneously. Exploring this world of opposition, Klimt found the line to summarize and capture the expression incarnated by the two men.

Noticeably, the “R” inscribed in the lower right corner of our drawing indicates its ownership by Carl Reininghaus (1857-1929), rich collector, patron of the arts, and Klimt’s most active supporter1. In 1903, Reininghaus saved Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze, installed in the Secession building in Vienna, by acquiring it before its planned destruction. Grateful to his benefactor, Klimt offered him many preparatory drawings, including our sheet.

In this monumental work, Klimt positioned his figures following strong vertical and horizontal lines determined by the architecture; as we can observe in our sketches showing frontal and vertical silhouettes. The vigorous, bony head in our drawing must be associated with the figure of the knight, the ‘strong well-armed man’ who fights for happiness for the ‘weak mankind’; the sketch showing a meagre, crouching man was a preliminary version of what became in the final work the female figure of ‘The gnawing sorrow’. The same sensual

1 Alice Strobl, Gustav Klimt: Die Zeichnungen, vol. 1 (1878-1903),

Salzburg, 1980, p. 221.

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Koloman Moser 1868 – Vienna – 1918 Young Woman

Pencil and watercolor on wove and grey paper, 1896-1900 Monogrammed lower right MK Sheet 295 x 185 mm Provenance Private collection, Belgium

We must say that we have been very impressed the first time in front of this drawing by Kolo Moser, who remains the most active artist in the blossoming of decorative art in Vienna around 1900. As a young artist, Moser started working as an illustrator, especially for fashion magazines where he met Gustave Klimt. They remained friends for life and were both founding members of the Secession in 1897, realizing many projects together. In 1898, Moser widely contributed to the first edition of Ver Sacrum with hundred-forty illustrations, but also with the lay-out of the journal. He also participated to the decoration of the Secession’s Exhibition hall, inaugurated the same year. He designed stained glasses windows and ornamental relief for the front façade. Named professor in 1899 at the Kunstgewerbeschule of the Österreichisches Museum für Kunst und Industrie, he influenced a whole generation of Austrian creators. Few years later, in 1903, he participated in the Wiener Werkstätte studio and became codirector with Josef Hoffman. Together, they established a new style of design, known today as the “Moser-Hoffman style”. He ultimately produced a large variety of objects from graphic art, textiles, decorative art, to interior architecture and scenography. However, he always followed his governing principles: the research of innovative decorative motives and the incorporation of art in everyday life.

A central theme of Moser’s oeuvre is the woman figure; from symbolist Art Nouveau nudes to more geometrical silhouettes inserted into decorative background. Our drawing illustrates a recurrent subject: woman clad in a wide and ornamented dress. Recalling the large dress that Silvia Koller worn in her portrait by the artist (sold in 2008 at Im Kinsky), the present dress also evokes a Japanese kimono. Influenced by Japanese culture, Moser designed many textiles, and created four designs of dress between 1901 and 1906, with an attention drawn to the neck line and the sleeves. The woman in our sheet could be his wife, Dita Moser whose face’s features and hair were very similar to the ones of the drawing. Between the softness of the woman’s face and attitude, and the energy of the decorative background, this work combines Moser’s gift for illustration and his constant exploration in ornamentations. From his serpentine motives of the 1890’s to the representation of square and triangles around 1900, Moser was inspired by the evolution of decorative art across Europe, especially in England. Mastering the art of stylisation, he liked to play with the juxtaposition of a variety of surfaces to create strong ornamental composition. Our drawing suggesting the art of stained glass, of poster and fashion, demonstrates the palette of the talents hold by Moser.

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Charles-Clos Olsommer 1883 Neufchâtel – Sierre 1966 An Asian figure

Watercolor, ink and pencil on wove paper, ca. 1908-10 Signed lower right in pencil C. C. Olsommer Sheet 232 x 162 mm Provenance Private collection, France

Tentatively, this very charming drawing has been entitled An Asian figure, as it seems to be. However, it might be an early portrait of Veska, Olsommer’s wife. Born in Bulgaria, she was supposed to be of great beauty and to have almondeyes. He married her in 1907 and then she became the model of many “mysticism” works by the artist.

his works at that time, marked by French Symbolism, with a touch of rurality and magic from the cultures of the eastern side of Europe.

The present work can be dated quite early, i.e. ca.

1908-10, when his style was pretty synthetic and still symbolist. There are a few drawings very similar in style in the collection of the Olsommer Museum in Veyraz (Switzerland). Later, from 1912, he set in Wallis, and moved to an art inspired by Ruralisme, close to Ernst Biéler and Margueritte Burnat-Provins’s portraits of Wallis natives and landscapes, but of a much more mystical atmosphere. Most probably in its original frame.

Of French extraction and later naturalized Swiss, Olsommer studied at the academy of La Chaux-de-Fonds up to 1902, at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich (1902-03) and at the Ecole des beaux-arts in Geneva (1904-05). He toured then a lot through Bulgaria, Balkans, Italy, Germany and in France.

Consequently, many esthetic influences pervaded all over

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Constant Montald 1862 Ghent – Brussels 1944 Emile Verhaeren declaiming a poem

Oil on canvas, 1908 Signed and dated lower right C Montald 08 Size 136 x 95 cm Literature Albert de Bersaucourt, Conférence sur Emile Verhaeren, Paris, 1908, 1st plate (ill.) ; Stefan Zweig,

Souvenirs sur Emile Verhaeren, Brussels, 1931, p. 96 (ill.)

Provenance Private collection, Belgium ; Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits, Brussels (between 2007 and 2015)

An exceptional portrait, reflecting both the painter’s sensitivity and the ardor of the famous Belgian poet, whose the centenary anniversary is celebrated in 2016. With the exception of a painting by Van Rysselberghe kept in Ghent and entitled La Lecture there are no portraits of this size in public collections, neither in the Musée des Beaux Arts in Brussels, nor in the Musée Verhaeren in Sint Amand, nor in France where the poet finished his life. Within the large corpus of representations of the poet by European artists, the present one holds a particular, even unique place.

and were posterior to ours. In early 1908, Maurice Gauchet published in his book dedicated to Verhaeren a first list of the iconography of the poet. There was only one mention of a portrait drawn by Montald, with no one on oil canvas.

Ours, dated 1908, could then be the first painted portrait of Verhaeren by his friend. Notwithstanding, Maurice Gauchet made mention of numerous portraits, in prints, statues or oil paintings, of artists of the time, like James Ensor, Felix Valloton, Charles Van der Stappen, Georges Lemmen and Théo Van Rysselberghe. However, the group of portraits of the poet by Montald displays a special interest due to every day intimacy shared by the poet and his painter. They were neighbors when the Verhaeren lived in Caillou-qui-Bique and the two couples used to have together walks, discussions, reading and even painting, as Marthe, Verhaeren’s wife, painted in the company of Montald.

Constant Montald, a painter known for his links with Idealism, was an intimate friend of Emile Verhaeren. Trained first in Ghent, then from 1885 at the Ecole des Beaux Art of Paris, Montald was awarded the famous Prix de Rome in 1886 and so got the opportunity to travel through Italy for three years.

On his return, he became member of the association Pour l’Art, and got married with Gabrielle Canivet. Being close to the symbolist illustrator Charles Doudelet and to Jean Delville, he took part at the Salon Idéaliste in 1896. Acclaimed for his monumental works, Constand Montald was later appointed Professor at the Académie des Beaux Arts and influenced a new generation of artists in Belgium and France.

On a preparatory pen-sketch for our painting, Montald wrote: “E. Verhaeren at the Caillou-qui-Bique”. The Japanese vase, visible at the left of the background is a known private object of Verhaeren and is now kept in his cabinet at the Royal Library in Brussels. We are thus in the poet’s interior, while he was reading. Montald reported that the days were divided into long hours of writing by Verhaeren in his office and declamation of his texts: “When we were there, Verhaeren used to wake up very early and without delay sat at his table for work. With his strong voice, he scanned his verses”. The theme of the poet scanning his verses is often associated with a work of Theo Van Rysselberghe, entitled La Lecture, dating from 1903 with the same gesture of the hand, the arm stretched in front of him, his whole body inclined

Montald and Verhaeren met in 1896, at the studio of their common friend, the sculptor Charles Van der Stappen.

According to Montald “It was friendship at first sight”. This long lasting relationship resulted in numerous portraits of the poet: several drawings, on the spot sketches and ten oil paintings, including the present one. Most of these portraits are only known through reproductions in books and reviews, 86

towards his listeners. Very cleverly, Montald here modified the composition to get a more powerful effect: the listener who is entering is directly confronted with the gesture of the poet in front of him. In contrast to Van Rysselberghe’s La Lecture where we discover the poet from behind, we are here no longer a voyeur of a closet hearing, but we become a guest of a private declamation. Moreover, Montald arranged his composition to emphasize the stretched arm, underlined by the back of the sofa, while Van Rysselberghe set Verhaeren’s arm on a table. In fact, it is precisely the gesture of the arm, the impetus carrying forwards the body of the poet that makes the present work a most important representation of the poet.

Given the fact that most portraits of Verhaeren by Montald

show the poet standing or seated, as waiting for something or immersed into contemplative thoughts, we may wonder about the dynamics, both impressive and unusual of the present portrait. An event of the year 1908 could provide some clues. That year a conflict erupted between Montald and the Commision des Monuments about the places of his decorative paintings in the Musée d’Art Ancien, Brussels. Verhaeren who never published something about his friend, publically stood up for Montald by publishing an open letter to the painter in the Fédération Artistique. Was it to acknowledge this defense that Montald did the portrait? Whatever it was, this work offers a vision both human and iconic of Verhaeren: a picture of the intimate friend and a tribute to the man of action and the eloquent poet.

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Georges de Feure 1868 – Paris – 1943 Prêtresse du Feu

Gouache on wove paper, ca. 1910-13 Titled with pencil lower left Pretresse du Feu and signed lower right AR I.d.F Sheet 208 x 111 mm Literature Ian Milman, Georges de Feure: maître du symbolisme et de l’art nouveau, Paris, 1992, p. 248 (for similar works) Provenance Private collection, The Netherlands

A charming and theatrical sheet due to the unusual collaboration of two artists: Georges de Feure and Henri-Gabriel Ibels.

thanks to him, de Feure was appointed to illustrate some programs for the Théâtre Libre of André Antoine. After Antoine became director of the Théâtre Odeon in 1906, he designed the costumes for a few shows.

Around 1912 and 1913, de Feure driven by an artistic effervescence and a taste for new horizons turned to theatre.

It might be that the enthusiasm generated in May 1909 by the Ballets russes at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysees and the appointment in 1910 of his old friend Henri-Gabriel Ibels as Director of Costumes at the Théâtre de l’Odéon were influential to this new course in his career. Indeed, the Atelier Ibels et de Feure dated from this time. He had made links with Henri-Gabriel Ibels in the early 1890’s, when they both participated in the impressionist and symbolist exhibitions presented at the Galerie Le Barc de Bouteville. Ibels was full of ideas to find a source of revenue for his friends. Probably

The Atelier, situated 54 rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, was supposed to create costumes for theatre as well as fabrics embroidered and painted, and more generally accessories for theatre. As far as we can assert, the rare testimony of this collaboration rests only on five drawings, representing a musician, a clown, a dancer and a Cyclope, plus the present sheet. They are all signed Ar I.d.F, and sometimes with de Feure and/or Ibels signatures. From this paucity of documents, one could assume that their friendship suffered from a difficult collaboration.

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Georges Rouault 1871 – Paris – 1958 Les Miséreux II - Maternité

Gouache on wove paper, ca. 1912 Sheet 310 x 205 mm Reference Bernard and Isabelle Rouault Dorival, Georges Rouault: L’Oeuvre Peint (Catalogue Raisonné), Monte Carlo, 1988, vol. I, no. 444, p. 139 (ill.)

Provenance Private collection, London

An iconic example of Georges Rouault’s series dedicated to the representation of poverty. Commonly known as Faubourg des Longues peines [Working class area of long-term distress] from a title given by the artist to one of his drawing. This ensemble of artworks illustrates desolated neighborhoods; old woman carrying heavy load, family with half-starved children, refugees, and haggard workers. Between 1909 and 1914, Rouault produced forty-five works devoted to this theme that contained his ardent faith for Christian principles, as well as his fascination and compassion for the humanity fallen into poverty and left over as the dregs of the industrial society.

the Roman Catholic Church in 1895. Close to Catholic writers, such as Joris-Karl Huysmans and Léon Bloy, he was most probably influenced by the book of the latter The Blood of the Poor when he painted works of the Faubourg series.

Published in 1909, Rouault owned a dedicated copy of Bloy’s book and was deeply affected by it: the main idea was the condemnation of the rich people, indifferent to the misery and poverty surrounding them.

Before becoming the pupil of the Symbolist master Gustave Moreau at the Académie des Beaux-Arts, Rouault was an apprenticed in a glazier’s studio, from 1885 to 1890.

This experience made him familiar with the medieval art of stained-glass windows, which had a significant impact on his aesthetic style. In particular, our Maternity possessed the pathos and nobility of gothic “Virgin with child”. Rouault brought this classic – even iconic – subject into the present, by dignifying this poor mother and her child. With subtlety, using the gouache transparency, Rouault revealed the feeble breast of the woman, evidence of her misery. In this tragic drawing, Rouault’s achieved to infuse some tenderness in the expression of the mother, still hoping for better days to come.

With a grandfather who collected Daumier’s lithographs, Rouault grew under the influenced of the artist. Later in his career, Rouault liked to observe the law courts in Paris, and became famous for his representation of prostitutes, tragic clowns, and pitiless judges. Close to the Fauves – he studied at the Académie des Beaux-Arts with Matisse and exhibited with the group at the Salon d’Automne in 1905 – he exalted his subjects with expressionist colors and features. Rouault gave roots to the new religious fervor he experienced by joining

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Sacha Guitry 1885 Saint-Pétersbourg – Paris 1957 Portrait of Jacques Villon

Ink and pencil on wove paper, ca. 1905 With artist monogram lower right SG Sheet 365 x 270 mm Provenance Private collection, France

How to introduce Guitry as a draughtsman? He was such a prolific and versatile artist as a writer, an actor, a producer, a director, a collector and a painter. He is mainly known for his theatre work – more than hundred plays – but he never stopped drawing. In 1903, he published a collection of his portraits-caricatures, Des Connus et des Inconnus. Later the gallery Bernheim-Jeune dedicated two exhibitions to his drawings and paintings, in 1911 and in 1921. The total oeuvre encompasses more than two hundred sheets, from various sizes and technics, most of them small and in pencil, some larger with ink as the present one.

Given the style, the technic and the approximate age of the sitter, the present sheet can be dated ca. 1905. The young Jacques was actually first a friend of the actor Lucien Guitry, Sacha’s father, met in Paris cabarets. The simplicity and strength of this ink drawing shows how influential Félix Vallotton was on Guitry’s work. He discovered the work of the Swiss artist in La Revue Blanche, also essential for Villon’s art. Guitry and Valloton have even worked together for the magazine Le Témoin, founded

by Paul Iribe in 1906.

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Willem van Konijnenburg 1868 The Hague – Aldaar 1943 War Dance

Black chalk and colored pencils on wove paper, 1919 Signed and dated with chalk lower right WAvK 1919 In its original frame designed by the artist and signed WAvK 1919 Sheet 1220 x 870 mm Literature Albert Plasschaert, “Willem van Konijnenburg (biographie met enkele uitweidingen)”, in Wendingen 4, 1921, 1/2, 4-13, p. 18 (ill.); Franz Dülberg, “Willem van Konijnenburg”, in Winterboek

VI, Amsterdam, 1927, no. 16, pp. 52-90, p. 73, p. 76 (ill.); Willem A. van Konijnenburg. Schilderijen

en teekeningen in de verzameling G.F.H. van Kooten Kok, vol. I-III, The Hague, 1929;

Willem A. van Konijnenburg. Gemälde und Zeichnungen Sammlung G.F.H. van Kooten Kok, The Hague, 1929; Willem A. van Konijnenburg, Paintings and drawings belonging to the collection of G.F.H. van

Kooten Kok, The Hague, 1929, vol. II, no. 140-142; Gerard Knuttel Wzn, ‘De anatomische

teekeningen en dansen’, in Willem A. van Konijnenburg. Schilderijen en teekeningen in de verzameling

G.F.H. van Kooten Kok, 1929, vol. II, after no. 155; Gerard Knuttel Wzn, Willem van Konijnenburg,

Amsterdam, 1941, p. 37, p. 25 (ill.); Mieke Rijnders, Willem van Konijnenburg 1868-1943, Assen, 1990,

pp. 104-07, p. 131 (ill.), color illustration on the cover; Mieke Rijnders, Willem van Konijnenburg.

Leonardo van de Lage Landen, Zwolle, 2008, pp. 156-57, p. 171, pp. 174-175.

Exhibition The Hague, Pulchri Studio, Hollandsche Teeken-Maatschappij 42ste Tentoonstelling, 1919, no. 43;

De Lakenhal, Stedelijk Museum, Willem van Konijnenburg, 1919, no. 9; Amsterdam, Arti et Amicitiae, Tentoonstelling van werken door H.P. Berlage, W.A. van Konijnenburg en R.N. Roland Holst,

1922, no. 5; The Hague, Pulchri Studio, Eeretentoonstelling W.A. v. Konijnenburg,

1928, no. 13; Utrecht; Assen, Centraal Museum; Drents Museum, Willem van Konijnenburg 1868-1943, 1990-91 Provenance G.F.H. (Frits) van Kooten Kok, The Hague; G.F.H. (Frits Jr.) van Kooten Kok jr. (on loan to the

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, ca. 1935); G. Oudshoorn, The Hague; Mrs. S.H. Oudshoorn-Spaan,

The Hague; Mrs. Tine Bottema, The Hague; Caroline and Maurice Verbaet, Antwerp

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search of what we know today as a “new market identity”. The changes which subsequently took place in his work encompass such a broad terrain, and go so deep, that it is difficult to see them as the consequences of a purely artistic development.

Once Van Konijnenburg had found his “unique selling point”, he transformed both his art and his persona with iron discipline. By 1907, after he had found his spokesman in the press, in the person of the critic Albert Plasschaert, he was increasingly portrayed as an artist who perpetuated and built upon the tradition of the masters of painting, specifically those of the Italian Renaissance.

His admirers saw him as he himself saw the artist: a spiritual leader. He was regarded with admiration, and his work was considered innovative. In the early twentieth century, people saw in him an artist who was changing the face of modern art in The Netherlands. Konijnenburg himself believed that this was the role reserved for him.

His success was enhanced after 1907, thanks to the support of the art critics. Thanks to Plasschaert, an art-critical consensus had been arrived at concerning the quality of Van Konijnenburg’s work, expressed in stereotypical terms. After 1907 his paintings were displayed with some regularity by art dealers, and were also collected beyond the circle of family and friends, by people like the tea and quinine merchant Frits van Kooten Kok, who would ultimately invest a small fortune in Van Konijnenburg (179 works, including Krijgsdans/War Dance). But there were also collectors with “museum” ambitions, such as the paint manufacturer P.A. Regnault and Helene Kröller-Müller, the wife of business tycoon Anton Kröller, early base of the Kröller Museum. And although Van Konijnenburg would never attain the broad popularity of Jan Toorop, following his national breakthrough in 1917, he was generally acknowledged as one of the most important modern artists in The Netherlands.

The War Dance is certainly one of the finest drawings by Willem van Konijnenburg and unquestionably the best drawing still in private hands. It belongs to a program of six dances, all in public collections: Dans der jonkheid (Dance of Youth), 1917; Rituele dans (Ritual Dance), 1918; De dans van het noodloot (Praedestinatie) (The Dance of Fate (Predestination)), 1918; Fatalisme (Fatalism), circa 1918 and Heksendans (Witch Dance), 1919.

The reputation of Van Konijnenburg was based largely on works dating from the period 1910-21, including such masterpieces as his own selections for the issue of Wendingen (4, 1921, 1/2) devoted to his work: Rotslandschap (Rocky landscape), St. Joris met de draak (St. George and the dragon), Vrouw met witte kat (Woman with white cat), Overgave (Submission), Vita summa in mortem transcendit, De afneming van het kruis, (The Descent from the cross), the Dances, among which Krijgsdans (Wardance), the anatomical studies, Zacharia, and the portraits of P.C. Boutens, Peter Spaan, Anton van Herzeele, Koosje van der Vegt and Albert Plasschaert. The quality of these works was indisputable.

The artist was the proud of the Netherlands in the Interbellum - he was even named as the “Leonardo of the Low Countries” [The Netherlands and Belgium] – and was completely forgotten after World War II. Obviously one of the standard-bearers of Dutch modern art, he consciously shaped his role as an artist, and he himself determined to a large extent the image of his work and his person which emerged. It was around 1895 that he came to the conclusion that his realistic landscapes, painted with a ready brush, would not get him very far. This prompted him to go in

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In the pre-war period Konijnenburg’s work was part of the canon of Dutch modern art. He represented Dutch modern art at numerous official venues abroad. During the thirties some of Van Konijnenburg’s best work was also to be seen at exhibitions of the permanent collection of the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague and Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum (for example Krijgsdans (Wardance)). This was due in large measure to the interest displayed by Hendrik Enno van Gelder en Gerard Knuttel in The Hague, and Cornelis Baard and David Röell in Amsterdam. When Van Konijnenburg was commissioned to produce a monumental art work for the hall of the new building in The Hague, Eer het god’lijk licht in d’openbaringen van de kunst (Honour the divine light in the revelations of art), this provided confirmation of the central role which Van Gelder and Knuttel accorded him, not only within the museum, but also in the history of Dutch modern art, the development of which was chronicled in the collection.

After his death in 1943, Van Konijnenburg disappeared from the center of the Dutch art world. The international modernist canon guided policy in Dutch modern art museums. Work by dead Dutch artists which could not in some way be connected with the international development of modern art was rarely collected or exhibited.

Many thanks to Mieke Rijnders for the redaction of this entry.

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George Minne 1866 Gent – Sint-Martens-Latem 1941 Kneeling Youth

Plaster with patina, ca. 1929-30, for La Fontaine at the Senate House in Brussels Size 148 x 39.3 x 83.2 cm Reference Van Puyvelde 26 (for a smaller version of 78 cm high) Provenance Marie Gevaert-Minne (the artist’s daughter); Guy de Vuyst (private coll.);

Caroline and Maurice Verbaet, Antwerp

« Tous les auteurs reconnaissent que dans cette figure agenouillée, Minne a réalisé une synthèse – un équilibre entre la sensualité et l’intériorisation, entre le naturel et le décoratif » - Robert Hoozee1.

This work testifies of Minne’s contribution to the Art Déco movement. Monumental, this Kneeling Youth shows decorative and abstract lines. Minne softened, and elongated the silhouette, giving up the natural proportions of the models.

Another example is the hair line: usually depicted with curls and undulation, it is here simply marked with a thin line. The feet, such as the ones of the Kneeling Youths of the fountain follows the curves of the base, giving to the sculpture a delicate and harmonious balance; the transition between Art Nouveau and Art Déco is clearly visible on this version. His body, in this fragile plaster corpse, focus our whole attention. The position of the arms suggests a great physical and psychological introspection.

Such as in Le Petit Blessé, our figure seems to wrap himself up within himself. We recognize herein a form of narcissism, but also a necessity to turn one’s self away from the outside world, a typical attitude that could be observed in other works by Minne and finds a high point in our Kneeling Youth.

The Kneeling Youth which lead to the monumental installation of La Fontaine des Agenouillés, was created in 1898, a key year in the biography and career of the artist. Despite receiving his artistic training in Ghent, where he was born in 1866, Minne enrolled in 1895 at the Academie Royale in Brussels. He settled at this time in the capital, like his friend Henry Van de Velde.

The house built by the latter in Uccle, the Bloemenwerf, was a place of sociability which Minne benefited from by expanding a relationships network that allowed him to send his works to German-speaking countries. The creation of the Kneeling Youth in the context of this stay in Brussels constitutes a high point in the career of Minne. Many major pieces were created at this time: Le Retour du fil prodigue (1896), the group of Les Trois Saintes Femmes (1896) and L’Homme à l’outre (1897).

Undoubtedly one of the most well-known symbolist sculpture, the Kneeling Youth had a great influence at the turn of the century (the 8th exhibition of the Secession in Vienna in 1900) and on the Austrians Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka, and on the German sculptor Lehmbruck. Minne definitely forms a bridge between the art of the last quarter of the 19th century and the expressionistic avant-garde of the early 20th century.

His most important work, the Kneeling Youth had several versions, distinct by size and material2. Our Kneeling Youth is the most important size-wise with its 148cm high. It was probably realized ca. 1929, when Minne worked on La Fontaine des Agenouillés at the Senate House in Brussels. There are lines on each side of our plaster which most likely suggest that this plaster was used to produce the five bronzes forming the fountain. In 1929, George Giroux and the German art dealer Alfred Flechtheim organized a show devoted to Minne. A new success for Minne’s sculpture encouraged the artist to produce other casts of his major works.

1 Robert Hoozee and Monique Tahon-Vanroose, George Minne en de

kunst rond 1900, Gent, 1982, p. 5.

2 Idem, pp. 148-155.

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INDEX OF ARTIST NAMES (PAGE)

Bonheur, Rosa Carrière, Eugène Dalou, Aimé-Jules de Feure, Georges De Nerée, Christophe Degas, Edgar Degouve de Nuncques, William Delville, Jean Denis, Maurice Doré, Gustave Gérard, Baron François Géricault, Théodore Grasset, Eugène Graverol, Alexandre Guilloux, Charles-Victor Guitry, Sacha Hawkins, Louis Hayet, Louis Khnopff, Fernand Klimt, Gustav Kupka, František

16 60 18 46, 90 71 8 62 56 42, 65, 69 12 7 6 34 36 58 94 38 30 77 79 73

Laugé, Achille Lemmen, Georges Leroux, Hector Loir, Luigi Manet, Julie Minne, George Montald, Constant Moser, Koloman Olsommer, Charles-Clos Orazi, Manuel Point, Armand Rassenfosse, Armand Redon, Odilon Rouault, Georges Savoldo, Giovanni Schwabe, Carlos Séon, Alexandre Sonrel, Elisabeth Toorop, Jan van Konijnenburg, Willem

22 24, 26 10 32 28 100 85 81 83 52 54 50 14 92 4 48 20, 44, 67 40 75 96

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CATALOGUE ENTRIES

Eric Gillis, Noémie Goldman and Mieke Rijnders DESIGN

Arthur Calame PRINTER

Impressor Pauwels Sprl., in Brussels in May 2016 TRANSLATION/CORRECTIONS

Jean-Marie Gillis PHOTOGRAPHS & PHOTOGRAVURE BY

L’Atelier de l’Imagier, and Olivier Dengis, Mistral Bvba Special thanks (by alphabetical order) to Antoine Bechet, Etienne Breton, Anthony Crichton-Stuart, Pascal de Sadeleer, Guy de Vuyst, Bertrand Gautier, Michel Guillanton, Audrey Hulsmans, Melissa Hughes, Philippe Kaenel, Dominique Le Jeune, Ingrid Lescot, Corinne Letessier, Jawad Maher, Ian Millman, Mathieu Néouze, Marie-Astrid Neulens, Valérie Quelen, Anna Reerds, Philip Serck, Diane Stordiau, Bertrand Talabardon, Nicole Tamburini, Willem Truffino, Christophe Van de Weghe, Etienne Van Vyve. © Eric Gillis Fine Art – June 2016

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