Collection of Paintings

Collection of Paintings

Ruzhnikov • Fine art & antiques

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PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR (1841-1919) VUE DU MOURILLON 1890 oil on canvas 46 x 56 cm signed lower right: Renoir Provenance: Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris Private Collection, Switzerland Sale: Galerie Motte, Geneva, 27th November 1965, lot 71 Purchased at the above sale by the late owner Exhibitions: Renoir: An Exhibition of Paintings from European Collections in aid of the Renoir Foundation, Marlborough Fine Art, London, 1956, n° 11, illustrated Bibliography: Renoir: An Exhibition of Paintings from European Collections in aid of the Renoir Foundation [exhibition catalogue], n° 11, illustrated This work will be included in the forthcoming Renoir Catalogue critique being prepared by the Wildenstein Institute and established from the archives of François Daulte, Durand-Ruel, Venturi, Vollard and Wildenstein.

This work will be included in the second supplement to the Catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles de PierreAuguste Renoir being prepared by Guy Patrice Dauberville and Floriane Dauberville, published

by Bernheim-Jeune.

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Paysage sur la côte près de Menton, 1883 Museum of Fine Art, Boston

Cap Saint Jean, 1893 Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia

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Vue du Mourillon is a serene and evocative vision that embodies the fresh spontaneity of Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s later plein-air painting. Painted in 1890, the present work depicts a lush landscape in the Southern Mediterranean with rich green foliage, feathery vibrant blue brushstrokes and a sailboat visible in the distance. Unlike Camille Pissarro and Claude Monet who often depicted labourers in landscapes, Renoir preferred to focus on scenes of leisure. Discussing Renoir’s landscapes from this period and how they helped to shape the rest of his career, John House comments that Renoir’s paintings of the early 1890s were characterised by a ‘softer, more supple handling... This harmonious interrelation of man and nature became a central theme in Renoir’s late work’ (Renoir [exhibition catalogue], Hayward Gallery, London; Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris & Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1985-86, pp. 262).

The late 19th century was a particularly prosperous time for Renoir, during which he began to achieve a degree of economic success. By this time, Renoir had become recognised as one of the foremost Impressionist painters and received a significant degree of financial support from the dealer Paul DurandRuel. This newfound financial freedom allowed him to paint en plein-air with greater frequency, finding that the freshness of natural light was much more desirable to studio work.

Vue du Mourillon is a vivid and bright composition created during this period of artistic growth. During this time, Renoir travelled to the south of France annually, motivated in part by his weakening health but also in search of fresh inspiration for new paintings. In a letter to Durand-Ruel, towards the end of one of his stays in the Mediterranean, Renoir comments on the glorious weather and his newfound delight in plein-air painting: “I am cramming myself with sunshine!... This landscape painter’s craft is very difficult for me, but these three months will have taken me further than a year in the studio. Afterwards I’ll come back and be able to take advantage at home of my experiments” (as cited in B. E. White, Renoir: His Life, Art, and Letters, New York, 1984, p. 191).

The present work was acquired from Galerie Motte in 1965 by Annemarie Düringer and has remained in her family’s collection until the present day.

A Swiss actress of extraordinary beauty, Düringer was a member of the prestigious Vienna Burgtheater where she was known for her portrayal of Queen Elisabeth in Schiller’s Maria Stuart.

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GUSTAVE LOISEAU (1865-1935) BORDS DE LA SEINE 1913 oil on canvas 73 x 92 cm signed and dated lower right: G Loiseau 1913 Provenance: Durand Ruel, Paris, (acquired from the artist 7 November 1913, stock no 10456/13190, photograph no 77976) Private collection, France, acquired from above 1 February 1985 Private collection, Brittany, acquired before 1996 This work will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné being prepared by Didier Imbert.

Bords de la Seine exemplifies Gustave Loiseau’s lifelong fascination with the Seine and its tributaries. Highly characteristic of Loiseau’s en plein air technique, the present work captures the movement of the water, the stillness of the trees, and the enveloping mist of the river in the early evening light.

Although taught by Paul Gauguin, it was Loiseau’s close friend Claude Monet who would ultimately have the stronger influence over the artist. Having signed an exclusive contract with Monet’s influential dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in 1897, Loiseau was able to travel extensively throughout Normandy. Journeying down the Seine from source to mouth provided Loiseau with the inspiration for his most significant and successful body of work.

Bords de la Seine is a particularly intense example of his directly observed studies of the river. The palette of soft lavenders and lilacs, muted greens and delicate white create a painting that is as much an expression of a mood as a depiction of a place.

It is a particularly subtle demonstration of the reason behind the artist’s reputation as the ‘historiographer of the Seine’.

Claude Monet Morning on the Seine near Giverny, 1897 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

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GUSTAVE LOISEAU (1865-1935) BORDS DE L’EURE 1920 oil on canvas 72 x 92 cm signed and dated lower right: G Loiseau 1920 Provenance: Durand-Ruel, Paris Galerie des Granges, Geneva Private collection, New York, acquired in 1983 To be included in the Loiseau Catalogue raisonné being prepared by Didier Imbert Loiseau was born in Paris. He was apprenticed to a decorator, a job he particularly disliked, but his interest in art (especially landscape painting) grew when his parents moved back to their hometown of Pontoise in 1884. This town near Paris had an important place in French painting at the time, its environs having recently been depicted extensively by Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne, the former having a home there.

The son of a Parisian butcher, Loiseau announced his intentions to become an artist in 1880, aged just 15. However, it was not until 1887, when Loiseau received a legacy from his grandmother, that he was able to give up his job as a decorator and devote his life to painting. After a move to Paris, his first teachers included such illustrious names as Jean-Louis Forain, but Loiseau did not appreciate the more academic tendencies such artists promoted. It was not until a move to Pont-Aven in 1890 and his meeting with Henry Moret and Maxime Maufra that he found his style. He learnt a great deal first hand from Gauguin, but his work also shows a debt to Alfred Sisley and Pissarro.

After a period of pointillist experimentation, he re-discovered his pure landscape ideals painting in a Post-Impressionist manner directly from nature.

Loiseau returned to Paris in 1891 where he began to exhibit his work, showing first at the Fifth Exhibition of Impressionist and Symbolist Painters.

For the rest of his life, he travelled extensively, painting in the Dordogne, Dieppe and on the banks of the Seine. Loiseau also painted an important series of works of Paris that form a fascinating development to the first Impressionist views of Monet and Pissarro. In these works, he took a high viewpoint and concentrated on the contrast between the small figures below and the large buildings, often shown with obvious advertising hoardings.

Although he died in Paris in 1935, his last years were spent in Pontoise, where his introduction to painting had begun. Today Loiseau is recognised as a significant figure in Post-Impressionism. His paintings are held in numerous public museum collections globally, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England.

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GUSTAVE LOISEAU (1865-1935) BRUME SUR L’EURE 1919 oil on canvas 73.7 x 92.2 cm signed lower left: G. Loiseau Provenance: Private collection, USA Gustave Loiseau, one of the most poetic and sensitive of the Post-Impressionists, was fascinated by rivers and watercourses. Returning to the subject again and again throughout his career, they provided inspiration for his finest canvases.

Particularly successful were the paintings that achieved a harmonious marriage of water and sky, reflection and atmosphere, as demonstrated here.

Painted in with Gustave Loiseau’s own characteristic style, in which the surface of the canvas is painted using a series of cross-hatching marks, the work, at the same time, shows the influence of such masters as Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro and Jean-BaptisteCamille Corot.

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HENRI MARTIN (1860-1943) LA TOUR DE COLLIOURE, LEVER DE LUNE 1923-1924 oil on canvas 97 x 86 cm signed lower center: Henri Martin Provenance: Galerie Georges Petit, Paris Private collection, acquired from above in the 1930s Sale: Sotheby’s, New York, 9 November 1994, lot 156 Private collection Exhibitions: Exposition de Bruxelles, Brussels, Galerie du Studio, 1924 The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Cyrille Martin The amber light of a fading day envelops a harbour in this exemplary NeoImpressionist work. Glowing with warm contrasts, La Tour de Collioure, Lever de Lune shows Henri Martin at the height of his powers, and depicts the town in which he produced the finest paintings of his career. The balance of light and shade, the subtle play of the complementary colours yellow and blue, and the rhythmic arrangement of the ships’ masts capture the artist’s sensitivity to his subject.

Having developed a successful career as a painter in Paris, Martin began to feel stultified by the clamour of city life. In 1923, seeking fresh inspiration, he turned his back on the capital for the seclusion of Collioure, a port town located at the foot of the Pyrenees near the Spanish border. Martin was in his sixties when he moved to this Roman town. Though he was in the latest phase of his career, the move reinvigorated his work; he produced his best pieces here. He was able to draw upon the company of fellow artists who gathered in the town. Andre Derain, Henri Matisse and Paul Signac visited the town from 1905 onwards; Collioure features in many key, early Fauvist works.

It was Martin, however, who captured the town at its most enchanting.

La Tour de Collioure, Lever de Lune depicts the view from his studio overlooking the port.

Henri Martin Le port de Collioure oil on canvas, 91 x 110 cm.

Sold: Sotheby’s, London, 20 June 2006, price realized £534,400 ($986,075)

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HENRI MARTIN (1860-1943) LA VALLÉE DU VERT À LABASTIDE-DU-VERT circa 1920 oil on canvas 112 x 117.5 cm signed lower left: Henri Martin Provenance: Ansas de Pradines, Toulouse William Findlay Gallery, Chicago, Illinois New York University Law School, New York Sotheby’s, New York, February 11, 1987, lot 64 Hammerbeck Works of Art, London, acquired from above Richard Green, London Private collection, acquired circa 1993 Arthur Pergament, New York Private collection The present work represents a subject Martin returned to on a number of occasions: the view from his house of Marquayrol that overlooked the valley of Labastide-du-Vert, near Cahors, southwest France. The harmonious interaction of man-made habitations and their natural environment are typical of the sense of peace and contentment that Martin brought to his art.

The broken brushwork dissolves the forms of the landscape, emulating the effect of a softening light; indeed, Martin attributed his divisionist technique to the study of nature: ‘‘My preoccupation with rendering atmospheric effects increased later, after three months in the country, face to face with nature. The natural light, now brilliant, then diffuse, which softened the contours of figures and landscape, powerfully obliging me to translate it any way I could, but other than by using a loaded brush – through pointillé and the breaking up of tone’’ (as cited in in the exhibition catalogue Henri Martin, Musée Henri Martin, Cahors, 1992, p. 89).

In 1900, Martin purchased a large, seventeenth-century villa in the village of Labastide-du-Vert in southwest France. Marquayrol became Martin’s summer retreat, and it was here that he would retire from Paris between the months of May and November, revelling in the beauty and serenity of nature that the city lacked. The peaceful surroundings of Marquayrol were to become Martin’s preferred subject matter; as well as the landscape around the property, he depicted every single detail of the house and gardens - the round pool, the terrace, the vineyard, and the gate became recurring themes in his work.

Marquayrol was as important to Martin as the gardens at Giverny were to Claude Monet. It was here that Martin’s unique style, a synthesis of Impressionism with pointillist brushwork, reached its maturity. He used divisionist techniques to convey mood and the ‘diverse effects’ of nature.

Taking nature as his new ‘model of beauty’, he repeatedly painted his beloved garden using varying colour schemes to characterise different times of day and year until the very end of his career. Later, Martin wrote: ‘my preoccupation with rendering atmospheric effects increased in the country, face to face with nature. Trying to capture its diverse effects, I was compelled to paint it differently. The natural light, now brilliant, then diffuse, which softened the contours of figures and landscape, powerfully obliged me to translate it any way I could, but other than by using a loaded brush - through pointille and the breaking up of tone’ (from a letter to his friend Bernard Marcel, director of the Marble depot and art critic, quoted in the exhibition catalogue Henri Martin, Musée Henri Martin, Cahors, 1992, pp. 89-90).

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KONSTANTIN MAKOVSKY (1839 - 1915) PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST’S WIFE 1900 oil on canvas 214 x 110 cm signed lower left: K Makovsky 1900

Provenance: Private collection, Europe Sale: Blanchet & Joron-Derem, Paris, 10 November 2000, lot 63 Private collection, USA Exhibitions: Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1900 Literature: Catalogue illustre officiel de l’exposition decennale des beax-arts, Paris 1900 L. Greder, Loisirs d’art: mélanges, la peinture étrangère à l’Exposition de 1900, Paris, 1900 W. Salmond, R.E. Martin, W. Zeisler, Konstantin Makovsky: The Tsar’s Painter in America and Paris, Hillwood, 2016, illustrated Konstantin Egorovich Makovsky left a significant artistic legacy. He worked as a genre painter, was a master of history painting and was also a skilled landscape artist. However, Makovsky is especially renowned for his elegant female salon portraits.

Makovsky frequently painted women he was close to. He was happily married three times. Maria Alexeevna Matavtina (1869-1919) was his third wife. The artist met her in 1889 in Paris, where he kept a studio. As a result, Makovsky divorced his second wife, Iulia Pavlovna, in 1892 and remarried in 1898.

Maria Alekseevna was thirty years younger than him.

From the 1890s, Maria Alekseevna became the artist’s favourite model.

Her portraits were frequently shown at various exhibitions. She posed for such famous paintings as Romeo and Juliet (1895, Odessa Art Museum) and Ophelia.

The present portrait of Maria Matavtina is painted in the best tradition of classical formal European portraiture, imparting the desire of a maestro to compete with the Old Masters. It is not by chance that Makovsky’s contemporaries compared him to van Dyck while the art critics remarked that ‘‘His colours sing, like those of Rubens.’

As Dr Elena Nesterova writes, ‘his canvases... combined the formal and the intimate, the majestic and the sentimental... [They] were remarkable for their superb technique, excellent detail (...) rich and decorative colours, the freedom and energy of the brushwork’’ (E. Nesterova, K.Makovsky, St.Petersburg, 2003, p. 268).

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Portrait of the Artist’s Wife and Daughters, circa 1900 Private Collection

Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, Maria Alekseevna Makovskaya, circa 1900 Private Collection

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Makovsky’s female portraits constitute a body of superb painting, with a wonderful sense of detail and of its place in the overall composition of the work, a richness and ornamentation of colouring, a free and temperamental brushwork and an eroticism, which although not overt, was nevertheless expressed in the very presentation of the image. This portrait of the artist’s third wife, Maria Matavtina, possesses all of these characteristics to the highest degree.

“Niva” 1911

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STANISLAV ZHUKOVSKY (1873 – 1944) INTERIOR OF THE SHEREMET YEVO PALACE IN KUSKOVO, MOSCOW 1917 oil on canvas 84 x 109 cm signed, dated and titled lower right: Moskva, Kuskovo, S. Zukovski, 1917 Provenance: Private collection, Poland Private collection, USA Sale: Butterfields, San-Francisco, 16 May 2001 Private collection, USA

Stanislav Zhukovsky Kuskovo, 1917 Warsaw National Gallery

Exhibitions: Tovarishchestvo peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok [The Society for Traveling Exhibitions], Petrograd, 1918 Solo exhibition, Warsaw, 1923-1924 (supposedly) A celebrated Russian landscape artist of the Polish descent, Zhukovsky was one of the leading Russian Impressionist painters. He turned to interiors in the second decade of the twentieth century, embarking on a cycle of paintings depicting Russia’s grand estates.

The 1916-17 series of interiors of Kuskovo, the famous summer estate of the Sheremetev family, is considered to be his best work in this genre. Built in the mid-18th century several miles to the east of Moscow, the Palace of Kuskovo is one of the oldest and most beautiful summer residences in Russia.

According to the design of its owner, Count Pyotr Sheremetev, Kuskovo was intended to be comparable in size and beauty to the Tsar’s own residences. In a letter addressed to Dmitri Sheremetev, Zhukovsky betrays his fascination with interiors: ‘‘would you be kind enough to allow me to paint in your houses in Ostafievo and Kuskovo? I am a great admirer of the old times … Here they speak so clearly and are so wonderfully, carefully preserved. I would like to do some interiors of this priceless memorial to a wonderful era. Unfortunately, they have been disappearing so rapidly in recent times and there are few genuinely cultured and refined people who can appreciate these sacred places and are not converting them to factories and using as firewood the parks where Eugene Onegin once walked.’’

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The present painting belongs to the same series of the Sheremetyevo Palace interiors as the work now in the Warsaw National Gallery.

Stanislav Zhukovsky was one of the most revered landscape artists in Russia.

Born in the city of Grodno in 1873, he enrolled at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1892, where he studied under Isaac Levitan, Valentin Serov, and Vasily Polenov. Prior to his graduation in 1899, the Tretyakov Gallery acquired one of his paintings, entitled ‘Moonlit Night’.

He exhibited with the Wanderers from 1896 to 1917—participating in the famous ‘World of Art’ exhibition in 1902—and became a member in 1904.

He opened a private art studio where he tutored celebrated avant-garde artist Liubov Popova and the revolutionary poet and painter Vladimir Mayakovsky.

In the early twentieth century, he developed an interest in the Impressionist movement, which was reflected in his works.

After the 1917 Revolution, he joined the Art Section of the People’s Commissariat of the Enlightenment and was appointed to the Art Committee of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. One of his paintings was exhibited at the First Russian Art Exhibition in Berlin in 1922. He moved back to his native Poland in 1923, where he died in a concentration camp shortly after the Warsaw uprising in 1944. Most of Zhukovsky’s later paintings were destroyed.

Works by the artist can still be found in major museum collections such as the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, the Russian Museum in St.Petersburg, the Warsaw National Gallery and the Galleria Nazionale in Rome.

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TAMARA DE LEMPICKA (1898 – 1980) À L’OPÉRA 1941 oil on canvas 76.2 x 50.8 cm signed and dated lower right: T. de Lempicka / 1941 Provenance: Barry Friedman Ltd., New York, 1979 Wolfgang Joop, 1980 Private collection, USA Exhibitions: Tamara de Lempicka (Baroness de Kuffner), Julien Levy Galleries, New York, n° 18; San Francisco, Los Angeles, n° 7, 1941 Tamara de Lempicka (Baroness Kuffner), Milwaukee Art Center, 1942, n° 12 Tamara de Lempicka, Seibu Gallery, Tokyo & Osaka, 1981 Tamara de Lempicka, Tra eleganza e trasgressione, Accademia di Francia (Villa Medici), Rome, 1994, n° 53, illustrated in colour in the catalogue Tamara de Lempicka, Art Deco Icon, The Royal Academy, London, 15 May – 30 August 2004; Kunstforum, Vienna, 16 September 2004 – 2 January 2005, n° 55 Tamara de Lempicka, Fundación Caixa Galicia, Vigo, 2006 Tamara de Lempicka, Palazzo Reale, Milan, 5 October 2006 – 18 February 2007, n° 51 Tamara de Lempicka: La regina del moderno, Complesso del Vittoriano, Rome 11 March – 10 July 2011, n° 63 Literature: G. Mandel, La pittrice Tamara de Lempicka, Milan, 1957, illustrated p. 12 G. Marmori, Tamara de Lempicka, Milan, 1978, p. 7 G. Bazin, H. Itsuki, Tamara de Lempicka, Tokyo, 1980, no. 89, illustrated in colour W. Joop, Tamara de Lempicka, Träume von Mythen und Moden // Pan, Offenburg, May 1987, p. 17 K. de Lempicka-Foxhall, Ch. Phillips, Passion by Design: The Art and Times of Tamara de Lempicka, New York, 1987, illustrated p. 140 Tamara de Lempicka, Tra eleganza e trasgressione [exhibition catalogue], Rome, 2004 , n° 53, illustrated in colour A. Blondel, Tamara de Lempicka, Catalogue raisonné, 1921-1979, Lausanne, 1999, no B.222, illustrated in colour p. 309 A. Blondel, I. Brugger, Tamara de Lempicka, Art Deco Icon [exhibition catalogue], London, 2004, no. 55, illustrated in colour G. Mori, Tamara de Lempicka [exhibition catalogue], Milan, 2006, n° 51, illustrated in colour​​ G. Mori, Tamara De Lempicka: The Queen of Modern [exhibition catalogue], Rome, 2011, n° 63, pp. 281–283, illustrated in colour​​ 25

In March 1939, Tamara de Lempicka arrived in New York, along with her latest paintings. Among these pieces was yet unfinished At the Opera, which she had started before leaving Europe. The painting is preceded by a study in pencil dated 1937, with significant differences compared with the final portrait.

The painting was first presented in 1941 at the Julian Levy Galleries in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The exhibition announcement in the Los Angeles Examiner on 24 March 1941 contained a photo of Lempicka in her studio in Beverly Hills in front of this canvas. The painting’s more overtly visual elements, which in certain elements resemble the neo-Baroque, nevertheless render it a wonderful example of the Art Deco movement, of which Lempicka was the most prominent and influential woman.

The painting comes from the collection of German fashion designer Wolfgang Joop, one of the most passionate collectors of Lempicka’s work.

The picture was particularly admired by Andy Warhol, who was the underbidder at the sale in which Joop acquired the painting. ‘I whisked away the first picture, Dans l’Opera, from under Andy Warhol’s nose,’ later commented Joop. Among other works by Lempicka in Joop’s collection were portraits of the Duchesse de la Salle, Marjorie Ferry, Mademoiselle Poum Rachou, and Arlette Boucard aux Arums - the finest group of paintings ever to appear on market.

Tamara de Lempicka Portrait of the Duchess de la Salle, 1925 Private collection

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Lempicka claimed to have been born in Poland in 1902, though scholars now believe she was in fact born in Moscow, in 1895. Her wealthy family emigrated to Paris just prior to World War I, and it was here, surrounded by avantgardists, that she developed her unique style. Lempicka’s earliest influence was academic. She trained at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière under French painter Maurice Denis, who taught her the principles of Les Nabis: a group of Post-Impressionist artists who stressed the importance of graphic art and design within painting.

Characterised by bold compositions, theatrical lighting, decorative emphasis on pattern, and sensual modelling, Lempicka’s paintings are instantly recognisable. Best known for her striking portraits of glamorous women, Lempicka’s work captured the spirit of the Hollywood age, yet infused her paintings with Baroque and Renaissance techniques, a synthesis of tradition and contemporary attitudes

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ÉDOUARD VUILLARD (1868-1940) LA SALLE À MANGER AU CHÂTEAU DES CLAYES 1935-1938 distemper and charcoal on paper laid down on canvas 173.5 x 134.5 cm stamped with signature, lower right: E Vuillard Provenance: Estate of the artist Sam Salz Inc., New York Eva Susan Stern, London Robert B. Mayer, Chicago, acquired from above in 1955 Sale: Christie’s New York, 15 November 1989, lot 462 Private collection Sale: Christie’s New York, 8 November 2000, lot 39 (price realized $688,000) Richard L. Feigen & Co. Private collection, USA Exhibitions: Vuillard, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 1945 Vuillard (1864–1940), Palais de Beaux-Arts, Brussels, October 1946, n° 6 Vuillard, Galerie d’Art Latin, Stockholm, 1948, no 20 Edouard Vuillard (1864–1940) – Charles Hug, Kunsthalle, Basel, March – May 1949, n° 237 Edouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses, 1890–1940, The Jewish Museum, New York, 4 May – 23 September 2012 Bibliography: C. Roger-Marx, Vuillard et son temps, Paris, 1946, p. 168, illustrated C. Roger-Marx, Edouard Vuillard 1867–1940 // Gazette des Beaux-Arts 29, n° 952 ( June 1946), p. 376, illustrated C. Roger-Marx (intr.), Vuillard (1864–1940) [exhibition catalogue], Brussels, n° 6, illustrated, titled Déjeuner aux Clayes C. Roger-Marx, Vuillard, Paris, 1948, n° 63, illustrated, p. 71 Vuillard [exhibition catalogue], Stockholm, 1948, no 20, titled Déjeuner aux Clayes Edouard Vuillard (1864–1940) – Charles Hug [exhibition catalogue], Basel, 1949, n° 237, illustrated, titled Salle à Manger aux Clayes R. Gaffé, Introduction à la peinture française. De Manet à Picasso, Paris, 1954, p. 171, illustrated A. Salomon, G. Cogeval, Vuillard. Critical Catalogue of Paintings and Pastels, Paris, 2003, vol. III, p. 1563, n° XII-212, illustrated in colour (titled ‘Lunch at Les Clayes’) S. Brown (ed.), Edouard Vuillard: A Painter and His Muses, 1890–1940 [exhibition catalogue], New York, 2012, p. 65, illustrated

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Fig. 1 Jos et Lucie Hessel dans le Petit Salon, Rue de Rivoli, 1900–1905 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Misia et Vallotton à Villeneuve Christie’s New York, 13 Nov 2017 Estimate: $7,000,000 – $10,000,000 Price Realised: $17,750,000

Fig. 2 Madame Hessel aux Clayes, 1935 Princeton University Art Museum

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La table de toilette Christie’s New York, 13 May 2019 Estimate: $5,000,000 – $8,000,000 Price Realised: $7,993,000

Château des Clayes, a fourteenth century manor house not far from the Palace of Versailles, was to be Vuillard’s last country refuge and his major source of inspiration in the last twelve years of his life. Les Clayes was owned by Joseph ( Jos) Hessel and his wife Lucie, Vuillard’s lifelong friends and closest companions. Jos Hessel was a partner in the prominent Parisian art-dealing firm Bernheim-Jeune, and together with the Bernheim brothers was instrumental in introducing Vuillard to avant-garde circles.

Lucie Hessel – who became Vuillard’s lover, confidante, muse and mentor – was one of Vuillard’s most frequent subjects until his death in 1940.

The artist was often a guest at the fashionable social events and friendly gatherings held at Les Clayes.

He quietly observed the guests, filling his notebooks with sketches. Jacques Salomon, his nephew-inlaw, recalled of Vuillard at Les Clayes that “he was constantly drawing his friends, and those who found his eye upon them knew they must hold the pose in which he had caught them…” (as cited in J. Russel, Vuillard, Greenwich, CT., 1971, p. 128). Then these sketches were transferred “to a sheet of cardboard or canvas, or more frequently to a piece of paper which he cut from a roll that stood permanently in one corner of his studio” (ibid., p. 127).

In the present picture, Vuillard masterfully displays elegantly dressed bourgeoisie involved in casual conversation within a formal dining room setting.

In the present picture, Vuillard masterfully displays elegantly dressed bourgeoisie involved in casual conversation within a formal dining room setting. On the far right, dressed in yellow, he painted Madame Hessel looking round at Romain Coolus, a novelist and film scriptwriter; in the centre is her adopted daughter Lulu.

This contrast of highly refined individuals shown in intimate and relaxed poses is typical of his later works. “In an unsystematic way he assembled as complete a record as any we have of the way well-to-do people looked and behaved in the France of the Third Republic” ( J. Russel, Vuillard, Greenwich, CT., 1971, p. 69). Madame Hessel is pictured at the far right of the table, conversing with the playwright Romain Coolus. Lulu Hessel, her adopted daughter, is seated in the middle.

La Salle à Manger au Château des Clayes was painted on ochre-coloured paper using the distemper medium, in which tempera paint is mixed with sizing. “Vuillard first used détremper as a scene painter in the theater and liked its quick-drying properties as well as its chalky, unreflective surface, which harmonized well in an interior setting…In cultivating a dry, matte quality, Vuillard was in tune with most of the decorative painters of his generation, who, in the wake of Puvis and Gauguin, sought to avoid the illusion of depth and reflective properties associated with oil paint and to appropriate, in different ways, the flat wall-enhancing effects of fresco” (B. Thomson, Vuillard, New York, 1988, p. 44).

Subtle use of colour recalls Vuillard’s artistic beginnings as a Nabi.

Another, smaller view of the dining room at Les Clayes, executed around the same time, is in The Princeton University Art Museum (Madame Hessel aux Clayes, 1935, fig. 2).

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IVAN AIVAZOVSKY (1817–1900) EVENING IN CAIRO 1879 oil on canvas 109.5 x 134 cm signed in Cyrillic and dated: 1870 l.l.

Provenance: Private collection, Moscow Private collection, Riga Exhibitions: I. K. Aivazovsky: Exhibition to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of his Death, The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, 1950 Bibliography: N. Vlasov, I. K. Aivazovsky [exhibition catalogue], Moscow, 1950 N.Barsamov, Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky 1817–1900, Moscow, 1962, listed p. 214 G. Caffiero, I. Samarine, Neizvestny Aivazovsky [Unknown Aivazovsky], Moscow, 2016, pp. 142–143, illustrated The present work is included in the numbered archive of the artist’s work compiled by Gianni Caffiero and Ivan Samarine.

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Fig. 1 The Pyramids, 1885 Yaroslavl Museum of Art

Fig. 2 In Cairo, 1881 Kiev Museum of Art

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The earliest recorded Egyptian view by Ivan Aivazovsky, Evening in Cairo, was painted less than a year after he returned from attending the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. While Aivazovsky travelled to the Western Mediterranean and Constantinople frequently throughout his life, both in person and in his work, he visited Egypt only once, and his depictions of the country are correspondingly rare. A work of this scale and quality has not been on public view for over seventy years and, needless to say, it presents an exceptional opportunity for serious collectors of his work.

Considering the fact that Aivazovsky was almost certainly the most prolific Russian artist of the 19th century, it is difficult to overstate how rare his Egyptian views are. Of the 550 paintings by Aivazovsky listed by Nikolai Barsamov in 1962 as belonging to Soviet Museums, only one relates to his Egyptian trip (fig. 1, The Pyramids, 1885, The Yaroslavl Museum of Art). In addition, the present work is the single Egyptian view in Barsamov’s appendix listing Aivazovsky works from private collections at the 1950 Moscow exhibition. His biographer Nikolai Sobko includes only seven in his earlier listing of 1892.

The 1881 cityscape (fig. 2, The Kiev Museum of Art) is the only comparable view of the city itself, taken from a similar vantage point as the present work and overlooking the same domes and minarets from a slightly lower hillside to the right. But the present work is closest both stylistically and chronologically to his 1871 masterpiece, Caravan before the Pyramids (fig. 3, Private Collection), which has a similar level of outstanding ethnographic detail and breathtaking quality: pyramids melt into the haze of the horizon and the sun casts dramatic shadows across the foreground. Almost inevitably Aivazovsky’s major Egyptian works all incorporate the pyramids, mindful perhaps of his less-travelled public. The grandeur and topographical detail of the present work, however, is unparalleled in any of his known views of Cairo. In this regard, the present work has more in common with his large-scale views of Constantinople (fig.4).

Though Orientalism has long been regarded as a primarily French and British phenomenon, numerous other national schools were also emerging by the middle of the nineteenth century. American, Austrian, Belgian, German, Italian, and Swiss artists, to name but a few, all traveled to the Middle East, the eastern Mediterranean, and North Africa in order to discover new subject matter and reinvigorate their aesthetic sensibilities. Among this cosmopolitan group of Orientalists were a number of Russian painters, whose works mirror, in many ways, the themes and styles of their Western counterparts. Ivan Aivazovsky’s Evening in Cairo, painted shortly after the artist’s transformative journey to Egypt in 1869, draws from this tradition of Orientalism, while also emphasizing those aspects that set Russian Orientalism fundamentally apart.

Looking west toward the pyramids of Gizeh from an elevated vantage point above the eastern edge of Cairo, Aivazovsky provides a panoramic view of some of that city’s most recognizable – and oft-painted – landmarks. In the center of the composition are the dome and minaret of Sultan Hassan (14th and 17th centuries) and, to the right, the iconic silhouettes of the Mamluk madrasa and mausoleum of Khayrbak (1502–20) and the early Bahri Palace of Alin Aq (1293), (Aivazovsky’s painting of Khayrbak, like others of the day, records the minaret before it was badly damaged during an earthquake in 1884.)

The union of these ancient and medieval sites in a single, expansive view, along with the glistening waters of the Nile River and the undying brilliance of the setting sun, suggests the continuity of Egypt’s cultural achievements, its relentless industriousness, and its enduring faith.

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Fig. 3 Caravan before the Pyramids, 1871 Private Collection

Fig. 4 View of Constantinople and the Bosphorus, 1856 sold for £3.2m at Sotheby’s London, 2012

Fig. 5 Jean-Léon Gerôme, Bonaparte in Cairo, 1867 Hearst San Simeon SHM

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Aivazovsky’s approach to the cityscape of nineteenth-century Cairo, merging topographic accuracy with symbolic meaning, was not unique in Orientalist art. In 1863, the indisputable master of the genre, JeanLéon Gérôme (1824–1904), had painted Le Général Bonaparte au Caire, a work which made explicit the imperial aspirations of its subject through its compositional choices (fig.5). Napoleon’s sweeping view from a promontory high above the coveted city would have had a particular resonance for Russian viewers, who well remembered the General’s (unsuccessful) attempt to invade their own country in 1812.

So too, the artist’s affinity for contemporary British art, inspired by a mutually influential meeting with Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) in Rome and a trip to London to study marine painting in 1842, may help to determine the source for one of the more light-hearted vignettes in Aivazovsky’s painting. On the grounds of the (largely imaginary) whitewashed house in the foreground of the picture are a group of Egyptian men and women, who have gathered for an evening’s entertainment. Their attention is focused on four dancing girls, or ghawazee, who sway to the beat of a young musician’s drum and the sound of his partner’s flute. The dress and postures of these women may have been witnessed in fact; but they may also owe something of their charm to an illustration in Edward William Lane’s enormously popular An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, first published in London in 1836 and widely distributed thereafter.

The significance of Aivazovsky’s dancers, however, may be more personal than this literary reference allows.

Invited as part of the Russian delegation to the festivities surrounding the opening of the Suez Canal, the artist found himself amongst a host of international dignitaries in Egypt in 1869. An anecdotal story told by Aivazovsky recalls a transformative moment during his stay: Upon the grounding of a French ship in front of the Russian vessel he was aboard, he was met with a five-hour delay in travel. This led to the spontaneous singing of traditional ballads and songs by an eclectic group of new and old friends, “uniting,” on this moonlit night, “two completely disparate parts of the world” (G. Caffiero, I. Samarine, Seas, Cities and Dreams: The Paintings of Ivan Aivazovsky, London, 2000, p. 61). It is possible that Aivazovsky’s twilight dancers were meant to mirror the sentiment of these words. They, like the landscape that surrounds them, are a symbol of harmony and accord.

The element of camaraderie that Aivazovsky’s painting evokes may stand for Russian Orientalism as a whole. With over one hundred languages and virtually every religion represented in its historically ever-changing borders, Russia occupied a paradoxical space between East and West. Aivazovsky’s own background was similarly complex: born into a multi-lingual Armenian family, he grew up in the Black Sea port of Theodosia, a city founded by Greeks and subsequently controlled by the Republic of Genoa, the Mongols, the Ottoman Turks, and Russia before becoming independent as part of Ukraine. Efforts by the Romanov emperors and empresses to promote their realm as European did little to change its perception as “Eastern” in the public consciousness, and later uncertainties about the stability and praiseworthiness of the West led many Russians to look more favorably upon their Asian roots. Orientalist painters therefore, participating in an art historical tradition that regularly drew a sharp distinction between “West” and “East,” faced a dilemma that might have been paralyzing in less resourceful hands. Instead, Aivazovsky and others managed to turn such ambiguity into an Orientalist art that spoke to both cultures, and that, as in Evening in Cairo, highlighted the joyful sense of community that many Russians felt when taking in the view.

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