Eric Gillis Fine Art - Catalogue16 - June 2015 by Eric Gillis

EXHIBITION

1824–1907 / Paintings & Drawings

July 2nd – July 10th 2015 Daily from 2 to 6pm After July 12th by appointment 14, rue aux laines | 1000 Brussels | Belgium

Caspar David Friedrich

1774 Greifswald – Dresden 1840

Sunrise September 1824

Pencil, white chalk on wove paper, 1824 Dated and titled lower center September 1824 Aufgang der Sonne Sheet 124 x 202 mm Reference Grummt (2011), no. 1009 Provenance Private collection, Belgium

The Sunrise September 1824 is a study made by Friedrich in the open air, facing the subject itself. The sun is rising through a densely cloudy sky on a flat and quiet landscape. In the foreground, one can distinguish some plants on a hillock. Further away, a field is seen with pieces of wood lying on the ground and two piles. On a sandy bank, on the right, lies a fragment of arched ruins while on the left, a low chain of hills covered with bushes vanishes at the horizon. The sky occupies two-third of the height of the sheet. The title given by Friedrich indicates clearly his fundamental interest: the rising of the sun. The exact day is not given, just the month and the year.

Greifswald and Copenhagen, but all of them were not recovered. From the arguments developed by Grummt, one can accept that Friedrich begun this album precisely on September 18243 and that Sunrise September 1824 was originally included into the album. From what we now know about Friedrich’s biography, the Sunrise September 1824 belongs to a group of drawings made when the artist used to walk in the countryside of Dresden with Carl Gustav Carus, to make drawings together4. This recall us of the Funeral Cross, dated September 17, 1824, of which a version by Carus is also known. In his memories, the latter recalls the time when both artists used to work together in the countryside. They were not inspired by an idealistic preconception, but moved by the will to give a fully realistic representation of the nature before them: ‘‘so wenig [auf] irgendeine ideale, sondern nur auf ganz treue Naturauffas-sung abgesehen’’5.

To make this drawing, Friedrich took a pencil, as he did normally. The sheet is near totally covered with parallel strokes, while a few small traits of white chalk complete the composition, organized by Friedrich around the rising sun. This technique is rather unusual to the artist and can be also seen in a drawing, kept in Oslo1, showing a man and his dog in a landscape. Both works have the same size. Recently Grummt provided evidence that this drawing was included into a loose-leaf album known as the Fischer-Skizzembuch2. The sheets, of a 205 x 128 mm format, were dispersed at an unknown date, and some can still be seen in Oslo, Stuttgart,

3 Friedrich combined the Fishing-sketchbook over several years. He

stopped signing it from the 16th May, 1828; see Grummt, no. 899. 4 Grummt 2011, no. 856; Carl Gustav Carus, Grabkreuz auf dem Briesnit-

zer Friedhof, 17 September 1824, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Kupferstichkabinett, inv.-no. C 1985-197. 5 Carl Gustav Carus, Lebenserinnerungen und Denkwürdigkeiten, Bd. 1, Leipzig 1865/66, p. 439; see Grummt, no. 856.

1 Christina Grummt, Caspar David Friedrich – Die Zeichnungen, Das

gesamte Werk, München, 2011, no. 899. 2 About the Fischer-Skizzenbuch, see Grummt, no. 899-912.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

1780 Montauban – Paris 1867

Portrait of Madame Louise Marcotte

Pencil on laid paper, ca. 1848 Signed, dated, dedicated lower left Ingres Del. à Madame Marcotte au Poncelet oct. 1848 Sheet 367 x 277 mm Provenance Mrs. Charles Marcotte d’Argenteuil; by descent from the above; acquired in 1950 by Georges Renand; in Galerie Krugier by 1988; Private collection, Japan Literature Emile Galichon, “Description des Dessins de M. Ingres”, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1861, p. 46; Charles Blanc, Ingres, Paris, 1870, p. 236; Henri Delaborde, Ingres, Paris, 1870, no. 297 and no. 369; Hans Naef, “Ingres’ Portraits of the Marcotte Family”, The Art Bulletin, 1958, pp. 336-45, fig. 21; Hans Naef, Die Bildniszeichnungen von J.-A.-D. Ingres, Bern, 1980, vol. II, pp. 529-30; vol. V, p. 304, no. 410 Exhibition Paris, Salon des Arts-Unis, Dessins tirés de collections d’amateurs, 1861; Paris, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Ingres, 1867, no. 336; Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Cent-cinquante ans de dessin, 1800-1950, 1952, no. 89; New York, Krugier Gallery, The Presence of Ingres, 1988, no. 34

A striking portrait, a demonstration of the ambiguous position of Ingres towards the Romanticism movement. Ingres, the master of neo-classicism drawings, reveals in several works emotional and sensual expressions that associate his art with the contemporary atmosphere of the romanticism. In the present drawing, he gave up his idealization manner, and represented this young woman in her authentic and particular charm.

that moment was extremely pale. Louise, though she had not what one calls regular features, displayed a genuine charm: her beautiful fair hair, her sight, blue and clear, the distinction of her whole person generated sympathy, even before the sweetness and the tenderness of her heart had been revealed by a longer acquaintance. This explains the sorrow of a poor bachelor who became mad for not having obtain to marry her”2.

Louise was 15 years old when she posed for this delicate and intimate portrait. Georges, Louise’s brother in law, described her on the day of her wedding in 1857: “I remember this poor little sister during that evening; her face, so sweet, which in

The present sheet differs from Ingres’ classical aristocratic portraits, and this particularity gives this drawing its attraction. Notwithstanding her noble birth, Louise’s dress is sketched rapidly with simple lines. She wears no jewelry, no extravagant accessories and stand in a blank space without any decor and attributes. Only the exquisite bow of her neckband reflects her aristocratic rank, underlined by the subtle white touches of her collar. The white coloring is pretty rare in Ingres portraits, always used in a skillful way, such as in the masterful Portrait of Franz Liszt (National Archiv der Richard-Wagner-Stiftung, Bayreuth) also with a withe collar. On the back of her neck, Ingres drew, in a realistic manner, a few hairs detached from her bun. This detail associated with her simple appearance increase the sensuality of the portrait. Louise’s singular expression captures the attention of the spectator, and by depicting here a genuine personality, Ingres offers us her femininity, far from iconic or aristocratic canons.

1 Hans Naef, “Ingres’ Portraits of the Marcotte Family”, The Art Bulletin, December 1958, p. 336; for an image of the painting see Portraits by Ingres, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999, pp. 122-123, no. 26 (ill.).

2 Hans Naef, Die Bildniszeichnungen von J.-A.-D. Ingres, Bern, 1980, vol. II, p. 531.

The sitter, Louise Marie Chantal Rohault de Fleury (1833-1873) was the daughter of Ingres’s close friend Charles Marcotte d’Argenteuil (1773-1864). The painter and his future benefactor met in Rome in 1810. The painted portrait of Marcotte by Ingres (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) was described by Naef’s as “the magnificent portrait which serves, so to speak, as a frontispiece to a relationship to do justice to which a whole book might well be required”1. From the deep friendship between Ingres and Marcotte, resulted fourteen remarkable portraits of members of the Marcotte family by Ingres.

Eugène Delacroix 1798 Charenton-Saint-Maurice – Paris 1863 Hesiod and his Muse

Oil, pen and ink on paper laid on canvas, ca. 1838-47 Vente Delacroix seal on the reverse Image 23.5 x 26.7 cm Provenance Estate of the artist; sale Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Vente Eugène Delacroix, 17-19 February 1864, lot 19, as Numa et Egerie; Achille Piron (purchased at the above sale); Normand collection (probably acquired from the above); thence by descent; Sotheby’s London, 20 Nov. 2012; Private Collection, United Kingdom (purchased at the above sale) Literature Eugène Delacroix, Journal, I, 463 Alfred Robaut, L’oeuvre complet d’Eugène Delacroix, Paris, 1885, no. 848, catalogued (with incorrect measurements 24 by 30 cm) Eugène Delacroix, Mémorial de l’exposition organisée à l’occasion du centenaire de l’artiste, Paris, 1963, p. 282 Lee Johnson, The Paintings of Eugène Delacroix. The Public Decorations and their Sketches. A Critical Catalogue, Oxford, 1989, vol. V, p. 57, no. L223 (with incorrect measurements 24 by 30 cm)

Painted circa 1838-1847, this fascinating oil sketch is a study for the commission that Delacroix was awarded in 1833 to decorate the ceiling of the library of the Assemblée Nationale in the Palais Bourbon, Paris. One of his first large-scale public murals, Delacroix ambitiously designed twenty-two subjects to fill the forty-two meter long ceiling composed of five cupolas in a row and two-domes. In addition to the present oil, Delacroix executed a watercolor, now in the Louvre, a pastel and two pencil drawings as preparatory sketches for the third pendentive of the first cupola in the north end of the library. The final version is pretty close to the present oil, except the figure at left.

On 31 January 1848, Delacroix described the subject in his journal as: ‘‘Hésiode endormi. La Muse, suspendue sur ces lèvres, et sur son front, lui inspire des chants divins’’ (quoted in Johnson, p. 76). Delacroix’s original solution to the selection and organization of subject matter for the ceiling mural was to divide the paintings in the five cupolas into themes of Science, History and Philosophy, Legislation and Eloquence, Theology and Poetry. Hésiode and his muse was dedicated to poetry. There is a great impression of a temporally suspended time about his work and the abstracted background around the muse strengthens the capture of the muse’s flying above Hesiod. Delacroix gives a strong lyric poetry to the composition.

Rodolphe Bresdin

1822 Montrelais – Sèvres 1885

Fishermen

Pen and china ink on tracing paper, ca.1865 With the artist stamp used by his daughter Rodolphine (Lugt 2194) Sheet 80 x 130 mm Provenance Private collection, France

Precious drawing by Bresdin illustrating his unique talent to depict delicate and rich landscapes. We know only 400 drawings by Bresdin, mostly in public collections, which make this sheet pretty rare. When the artist exhibited his drawings side to side with his etchings, the public was always confused by the similarity between the two types of works. Bresdin maintained this ambiguity and mixed the two mediums with liberty. The present landscape in the background can even be seen as a Dürer engraving. Our sheet is a remarkable example of his drawings; with its small-scale, the multiples layers of very thin lines and its dense composition. Bresdin drew with black ink on tracing paper. He often used this particular type of support to copy composition for future etchings. If his drawings were regularly exploited as inspiration for his prints, they also hold an intrinsic value. With a profusion of details, the generous vegetation surrounds the fishermen silhouette. Bresdin forms a fine balance in this composition between the plenteous nature and the lighten perspective created by the stretch of still water. Odilon Redon, Bresdin’s pupils, described the great originality of his master graphic works: “un genre tout nouveau, que lui seul exerce, et dont il est pour ainsi dire le créateur”1. 1 Odilon Redon, “Rodolphe Bresdin. Dessins sur pierre, eaux-fortes,

dessins originaux”, La Gironde, 10 janvier 1869, p. 2.

Giuseppe De Nittis

1846 Barletta – Saint-Germain-en-Laye 1884

Military School and Champs de Mars

Pastel on laid paper, ca. 1880 Sheet 308 x 469 mm Related work Place des Invalides, pastel, Milan, Galleria d’Arte Moderna; see Giuseppe De Nittis, La Modernité élégante, Paris, Musée du Petit Palais, 2010, p. 171, no. 56 (ill.)

refinement of our pastel demonstrates, we feel, the talent of the artist.

A precious and unique pastel, flirting between elegant academism and stunning modernity. The wide esplanade spreading across half of the composition directly astonishes the spectator. The Parisian skyline crowned by the golden dome of the Church of the Invalides, then attracts our sight. The strong rhythm created by the windows of the buildings in the background contrasts with the void in the center, only disturbed by a tiny silhouette. De Nittis uses this small but graceful rider to emphasize our impression of immensity in front of this view.

A close friend of Edgar Degas, De Nittis shared with the French artist his interest for highly original, and almost photographical, points of view. To draw our view of Paris, De Nittis surprisingly turned his back to the Seine and took a very low angle. This effect brings to the spectators a compelling sense of an immense perspective. The sky dominating the upper half of the work shows how the delicate manner of De Nittis in these pinkish reflects results in enlightening the soft harmony of the grey clouds. Such a technique remind us of the De Nittis Italian origins. Throughout the middle area, De Nittis applied a thin layer of pastel, which allows the grain of the paper to contribute to the softness of the atmosphere. He once said “Je connais toutes les couleurs, tous les secrets de l’air et du ciel.”

Born in the south of Italy, De Nittis studied in Naples before moving to Paris in 1867, where he stayed and worked most of his life. In 1880, he exhibited at the Salon several pastels representing urban landscapes of Paris similar to our sheet, even reviewed by the art critic Joris-Karl Huysmans. Although Huysmans will later become an important figure of the symbolist movement, he seems to have missed the poetic charm of these pastels. He criticized De Nittis for overdoing in the simplification of reality1. Notwithstanding this opinion, the elegant

The Foundation Giuseppe de Nittis at Barletta has kindly confirmed the authenticity of the present work.

1 Giuseppe De Nittis, La Modernité élégante, Paris, Musée du Petit Palais, 2010, p. 171.

Xavier Mellery

1845 – Brussels – 1921

Interior in Marken Island

Watercolor, lavish, pastel, pen and ink on cardboard, ca. 1878 Signed lower left X Mellery Sheet 520 x 476 mm Provenance Van der Aa, Brussels; by descent from the above to the present owner Exhibition Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Xavier Mellery, 1937, no. 170

A fascinating interior drawing from the Marken period of Xavier Mellery. Two of his works actually depicted the same room; the present one and the painting Intérieur dans l’ile de Marken (also called La fiancée dans la pronkkamer) dated 1878 (Musée de l’Art wallon, Liège). The comparison between the works is interesting: Mellery kept the woman in the exact same position and eliminated in the painting the presence of the man beside her and the cats in the foreground. Here, the drawing focuses on a couple having a conversation in their everyday life environment, when the oil focuses our whole attention towards the woman. Confronted with these two works, we are surprised by their difference and the way Mellery played with the composition to imagine a whole new effect. The typically blurred style of Mellery – only seen again later with the Nabis artists – adds to this feeling.

mores. Mellery is struck by the islanders’ pride and integrity; his still realistic works evoke the threatened genuineness that he continually seeks out in intimate interiors and in designs for wall decorations. He already strives for the quiet of a dam erected against the ubiquitous hubbub. Drawings in colors from this influence in Mellery’s work are pretty rare to find in this quality. A few were sold in the 90’s, but since then, such quality works have been hard to find.

Mellery’s works with Marken Island as their subject represent an important milestone in his career. His introduction to the island took place in 1878 through the writer Charles De Coster, who needed illustrations for his description of the Netherlands in the magazine Tour du monde. Marken was to Mellery what Brittany was to Gauguin: a lost paradise. Mellery’ stay on Marken represented a turning point in his artistic development. He distanced himself from his academic training and secured a place in the Naturalistic movement of the Belgian avant-garde at the end of the 1870s. He introduced in that way to the forthcoming Belgian Symbolism that the social conditions, heredity, and the environment had inescapable power in shaping the human character. At that time, unspoiled by tourism, Marken was a locality where a fisher’s colony was still able to maintain its customs and

Xavier Mellery, Interior in Marken Island, 1878, oil on canvas, 65.5 x 48 cm, Musée de l’Art wallon de la Ville de Liège ©Ville de Liège - BAL.

William Degouve de Nuncques

1867 Monthermé – Ixelles 1935

View from Brussels

Oil on canvas, ca. 1890 Signed W. Degouve de Nuncques and W.D. and indistinctly dated lower right Image 48 x 60 cm Provenance Suzanne Degouve de Nuncques; by descent from the above to the previous owner, grandson of Adrien de Gerlache, first husband of Suzanne Exhibitions Knokke-Heist, Casino, Le Symbolisme en Belgique, 1973; Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, Painters of the Mind’s Eye: Belgian Symbolists and Surrealists, 1974, no. 1 (ill.); Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum, William Degouve de Nuncques, Painter of Mystery, 2012, pp. 18-19 (ill.)

under the snow, is a fine example of the evolution of the artist towards even more silent landscapes. From then on, earth figures were disappearing from Degouve de Nuncques’s works.

Unsurpassed painting by William Degouve de Nuncques announcing his masterful symbolist landscapes. A rare juvenilia, never exhibited during the artist’s life that attests of the artist’s first steps in the Brussels art scene. After living in Machelen for a few years, where Degouve de Nuncques met Jan Toorop, he arrived in the Belgian capital in 1888. Between 1889 and 1891, he shared a house with the artist Henry De Groux, member of the Groupe des XX. Engaged with his friends Toorop and de Groux, Degouve de Nuncques was, for some time, influenced by the Social Art movement. Our present work is the only early Degouve so-called naturalist work that has been kept, the rest of the group seems to have been lost. It is also one of the very few remaining canvas by Degouve illustrating the working class in the city.

It is worth mentioning the distinguished provenance of the present work, from a worldwide reputable Belgian family. In 1899, the Belgica, a three-masted sailing boat, was on a triumphant return to the port of Antwerp after fifteen months in the Antarctica to collect scientific data. We found, at the origin of this exceptional scientific adventure, a young Belgian originally from Hasselt, Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery (1866-1934). Few years earlier, he did not hesitate to give up his studies at the Ecole Polytechnique in Brussels to fulfil his dream of exploring the South Pole. Adrien de Gerlache’s wife was Suzanne Poulet who later divorced the explorer in the early 30’s and then married William Degouve de Nuncques. Suzanne bequeathed this picture to her children, named after their father, de Gerlache. That is how this rare work is associated with the notorious name of the explorer.

Our depiction of Brussels’ skyline with a typically colored patchwork of houses and rooftops, prefigures aspects of Degouve de Nuncques master works. As a symbolist painter, he always had a profound attraction for empty houses, dived into a silent environment. The white and cottony sky that adds such a particular climate to the work, was also one of the artist’s trade mark. From the same years, Hiver en Brabant (Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo), representing a village

The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Gisèle Ollinger-Zinque.

Fernand Khnopff

1858 – Brussels – 1921

Landscape in Fosset

Oil on canvas laid on panel, ca. 1890-95 Signed upper center Fernand Khnopff Panel 18.8 x 23.3 cm Reference Robert Delevoy, Catherine De Croës and Gisèle Ollinger-Zinque, Fernand Khnopff. Catalogue de l’œuvre, Brussels, 1987, no. 168 bis, p. 430 (ill.) Provenance Clara Boey, Brussels; Private collection, Belgium

Fascinating poetic painting, offering a rare vision of Khnopff’ Symbolist landscapes. Apart his views of Bruges, Khnopff only represented landscapes around the small village of Fosset in the Ardennes. Khnopff spent most summers of his childhood in his family country house within this isolated hamlet. His production of landscapes is then exclusively oriented towards a nature that he knew in depth. Khnopff was only 16 years old when he sketched his first views of Fosset country. Between 1880 and 1897, he produced forty scenes; from wild and desolated nature, to simple farms and haunted forests. In one of his earliest depiction of Fosset, the artist noted on the sheet: “pas voir le ciel” [not see the sky]. In many landscapes, Khnopff eliminated the horizon from compositions, leaving only its reflection on water, grass or hill. In the present work, he added light blue brush strokes on the lower left side of the composition as the unique clue of a celestial presence. The spectator is drawn in by the softness of this small and isolated world. The delicate association of colours and the velvet texture of Khnopff’s painting display less a realistic representation of nature than an illustration of a memory, or a dream, and actually recall some Degas monotype of Burgundy landscapes of 1891. The water is quiet, almost still, with only few details disturbing our immersion within this calm scenery.

Cat. 8, with original frame

distinguish the work from the reality; as a photograph opening to another world. Where Khnopff’s portraits and symbolist figures are celebrated, his landscapes are less known to the public. Nonetheless, they possessed a real value for the artist himself who exhibited them in six of the ten Salons of the Groupe des XX. Khnopff’s landscapes hold an important part of his work and should be recognized for the influence they held within the arts of that period. When Khnopff presented several views of Fosset at the Vienna Secession in 1898, they had a great impact on Gustav Klimt who would produce similar landscapes in the following years.

It is worth mentioning the captivating frame, made by the artist himself. The frame is recovered by a brown thick sheet stamped by the artist own seals creations. Only a few Khnopff works still have this original surround and they add a real value to the picture. It enhances the poetic feeling, and invites us to 20

Georges Lemmen

1865 Schaerbeek – Brussels 1916

Bourgeois Interior

Conté crayon with charcoal and white gouache on laid paper, ca. 1890-91 Inscribed verso in pencil (most probably by Octave Maus) Georges Lemmen/No. 5 Etude pour le No.1 Sheet 470 x 593 mm Provenance Edouard Kohn, Paris (died 1895); Kunsthandlung Gauss, Munich; Allan Frumkin, Chicago; thence by heirs, New York; Private collection, Belgium Literature Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Collectors, 1963, p. 6; Selected Paintings and Works on Paper, London, Neffe-Degandt Fine Art, 2007, pp. 80-81 Exhibitions Brussels, Les XX, 1891, no. 5; Paris, Salon des Indépendants, 1891, no. 757; Indianapolis and Brussels, Indianapolis Museum of Art and ING Cultural Centre, The Neo-Impressionist Portrait 1886-1904, 2014, plate 14, p. 97 (ill.)

each woman is concentrated on her thoughts, there is a unified and charming impression of a shared familiar moment. Although Lemmen considered this work as a ‘study’, it possesses the strength and aura of an accomplished work. We are immersed into the overall softness of the atmosphere expressed by the cohesive effect of the Neo-impressionist manner. The gentle light that illuminates the faces of the three women, contrasts gracefully with the elegant grey harmony of the shadows. The velvety sensation of the black crayon, punctuated with delicate white gouache spots, make this work one of the artist’s most subtle pointillist drawings.

An astonishing example of the Lemmen Neo-impressionist drawings, revealing the use of a masterful technique to express the warmth of an intimate scene. In 1891, Lemmen exhibited at Les XX, in Brussels, his first Neo-impressionist works. He submitted two oil paintings, Bourgeois Interior (no. 1) and Young Woman Crocheting, and three pointillist drawings – the portrait of Jan Toorop and two studies for Bourgeois Interior, including our sheet (no. 5). An attractive fact of our work is the inscription at the verso with the number in the catalogue of Les XX’s Salon. It is most likely a handwriting of Les XX secretary Octave Maus (1856-1919), and reflects the close relationship and trust between the artist and the Salon director.

The Parisian collector Edouard Kohn purchased this study at the Les XX exhibition in 1891. This important acquisition concluded during the Salon itself was even mentioned in L’Art Moderne, the major cultural magazine published in Brussels at that time.

Since 1886, Lemmen had often depicted intimiste scenes of his family. Our drawing shows three generation of women: Lemmen’s sister, Julie in the foreground; their mother in the middle; and their maternal grandmother reading. Although

Pierre Bonnard

1867 Fontenay-aux-Roses – Le Cannet 1947

Intervalles, study for Le Petit Solfège illustré

Graphite and ink on laid paper, ca. 1891 Size 195 x 270 mm Publication Charles Terrasse, Le Petit Solfège Illustré, illustrated by Pierre Bonnard, Paris, 1893, p. 10

and discreet personality of Bonnard and the exuberant and contagious character of Terrasse found a common ground within a shared project blending music and drawings. The establishment of Le Petit Solfège illustré suggested by the latter to the former was surely a tight collaboration where ones music found their gaze in the others’ illustrations.

Charming drawing by Pierre Bonnard for Le Petit Solfège illustré characterizing the importance of illustrated books for the Nabis. Contrary to Maurice Denis aiming to the renewal of sacred art, Bonnard was more fascinated by modern life. He had a passion for photography, which he practiced, and for Japanese art discovered in 1890 during the Samuel Bing exhibition at L’Ecole des Beaux-arts. Nicknamed “le nabis japonard’’ [the Japanese Nabis] by the art critic Félix Fénéon, Bonnard adopted principles of composition which illustrate his interest for decorative art. Indeed, inspired by the English movement Arts and Crafts, he chose to not limit himself to paintings on canvas and developed an interest in areas where art meets daily life. From those years we found theatre sets, stained-glass windows, furniture, screens and wall paintings but also his first posters and illustrations of books and journals.

In 1891, Bonnard started working on this project in Arcachon, where Terrasse was a music teacher. He finished the illustrations two years later at Gran-Lemps (South East of France) during his annual stay on the family estate. This publication was the artist’s first illustrated book, and included, apart from the cover, thirty compositions each framing a page of text. Finding inspiration within Japanese art, Bonnard varied the layout and the tones of his illustrations to tailor a children’s audience and created naïf, yet delicate images. Following the custom of the time, the edition of the book was only released in 1893, offering Bonnard a couple of years to prepare his compositions. His various watercolor sketches prove the importance withheld within this project. Our drawing, preparatory sketch for Intervalles, represents a family scene with in the bottom right, the margin that will frame the text to come. The sheet is surrounded by an array of bells that goes to show the rhythm of a gentle way of life, insightful of Bonnard’s art.

Keen observer of domestic affairs, Bonnard lived far from high society life. The extent of his artistic productions lied within the company of his close friends and family members providing him subject matter for his paintings but also creating fruitful collaborations, such as the one he prepared from 1890 with his friend and brother-in-law Claude Terrasse. Organist and operetta teacher, he was firstly the regiment comrade of the painter before becoming his brother in law on the 25th September 1890 when he married Andrée Bonnard. One can imagine how the quiet

Théophile Alexandre Steinlen

1859 Lausanne – Paris 1923

Sketches for a seal or a stamp

Ink and pencil on two sheets, ca. 1894-96 Size 211 x 131 mm per sheet Exhibition Lausanne, Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Steinlen, l’œil de la rue, 2008, no. 34, p. 38 (ill.)

the spirit of the cats seen in some prints of the Japanese artist; he took inspiration from the artist seal, seen in prints, to design his very personal one.

From his beginnings in Paris, Steinlen was always fascinated by cats. During his career, the artist drew them in all possible positions, represented them on posters and lithographs and even made sculptures of them. Possibly this passion originated during his regular collaboration to the magazine “Chat Noir.” The posters made by Steinlen, as the one created in 1896, for “La Tournée du Chat Noir”, attained an iconic status.

In 1894 the poster of his first personal exhibition at the theatre Bodinière showed a monogram definitely inspired by the pen strokes of the Japanese paintings: a very rounded S in the lower part enveloped A and T, the initials of the artist two first names. Later, Steinlen explored different possibilities and looked for the most representative one. These various trials (iconic, alphabetical, Japonism, or purely graphic) underline the importance given by the artist to the signature of his works.

Steinlen developed his passion for the feline race as a follower of Champfleury who wrote Les Chats, histoire, moeurs, observations, anecdotes, published by Jules Rothchild and illustrated by drawings of Delacroix, Viollet-le-Duc, Mérimée, Manet and Hokusai. This work considered as a classic of its kind, covered the history of the felines, emphasizing their artistic and poetic impacts. Champfleury promoted the cat a symbolic attribute of the artist in this fin de siècle, more and more urbane; while Steinlen identified himself with this picture by the wide diffusion of his Montmartre illustrations. He certainly knew the anthropomorphic illustrations of cats by Grandville, but instead he chose to represent cats as they are, observing their way to wander in cities as well as their daily poses.

Our rare drawing on two sheets is one of the trials witnessing the unabated research of the artist. Here, with a seal clearly inspired by the Japanese ones and by the cabaret sign of the “Chat Noir” due to Alphonse Willette, Steinlen explored for himself various formats, squared or circular. The present version, in black and white, underlines the cat silhouette, slender and supple, with a single stroke of black Chinese ink, while the eyes left undrawn, seem to emerge from the night and are observing us. The black and white process reinforces strongly the sensation of a nocturnal apparition of the animal, somewhere between reality and fantasy. The outlines of the back of the cat detaches itself against a crescent of moon, emphasizing ounce again the direct link of the cat with the night life of Montmartre.

Steinlen’s love of cats was also fed by another literary piece: Les Chats, a sonnet of Les fleurs du Mal, by Charles Baudelaire where cats as artistic icons, are seen as voluptuous, shadow lovers, noble and self-proud, mysterious and even mystical. The Japonisme wave that impregnated Montmartre and the Parisian cultural circles during the second part of the 19th century, also touched Steinlen. He borrowed from Hiroshige,

Achille Laugé

1861 Arzens – Cailhau 1944

Still-Life

Oil on canvas, ca. 1893-95 Signed upper right A. Laugé Size 30 x 38.5 cm Provenance Private collection, Belgium Literature Nicole Tamburini, Achille Laugé: le point, la ligne, la lumière, Carcassonne, 2009; Nicole Tamburini, Achille Laugé: portraits pointillistes, Saint-Tropez, 1990

Our painting illustrates the ability of Laugé to change his technique depending on the matter treated. The strokes for the flowers are thicker and more rectangular than for the fruits where dots coexist with more sharpened lines, as a prelude to the hatchings that the artist adopted around 1894. The little strokes, orange or brilliant blue, give an electrical aspect to the peaches that come out of the rest of the composition painted with a softer blue. The treatment of the light obtained by the contrast of few saturated colors is typical of Laugé’s art which treats shadowy plans with small darkened dots, in harmony with the colors of each object.

This exceptional piece is a perfect example of the first and brilliant years of the artist after he left Paris. After having studied six years at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, from 1882, he decided to return in his native Languedoc. As soon as 1890, Laugé painted in a very personal divisionism style, portraits, landscapes and still lives, an uncommon subject among pointillist artists. Always refined, the latter often represent flowers, sometimes fruits. Having started painting with broad and little structured strokes, Laugé became after 1892 more and more meticulous to finally adopt a precise pointillism. The rigorous and geometrical composition, with a strict division of the planes of the present piece points to the 1893-95 years. The table detaches itself from the background by its horizontal and higher density of points, together with a subtle chromatic change from white to light grey. This minimalist setting focuses the attention to the flowers and fruits, sometimes underlined by a blue line, witnessing Japanese influences noticeable in the artist works during the first half of the 90’s. Most likely, he visited the retrospective exhibition Japanese Art at the Georges Petit in 1883; he himself had collected numerous Japanese prints.

Achille Laugé is a solitary artist. He marked little interest in academic education and disregarded an official career. He was negatively criticized at the Salon des Indépendants in 1894 and refused at the Salon de la Nationale in 1900, as well as at the Salon d’Automne in 1908. He painted as an outsider of the artistic circles. Today, one does not even know for sure if indeed Laugé met Georges Seurat and the pointillists or knew them only through their works, though stylistic relationships suggest that he actually did.

Armand Seguin

1869 Paris – Châteauneuf-du-Faou 1903

On the river bank in Brittany

Watercolor on sketch paper, ca. 1892 Signed lower left A.S. Sheet 200 x 265 mm Provenance Paul Sérusier, Châteauneuf-du-Faou; Henriette Boutaric, Paris; Private collection, Belgium; Private collection, France

his work, in painting, charcoal and mostly in etching (seven recorded by Field). The present one is remarkable for the pure contours and linearism mixed with an elaborate colorful and sensibility. The Nabis influence is still here present. As stated, Seguin’s drawings are extremely rare and only one other landscape in pencil and charcoal of the same years was actually recorded before.

This is a superb and extremely rare landscape watercolor by Armand Seguin, made during his stay between Pouldu and Pont-Aven. Seguin was 34 when he died of tuberculosis, and only some twelve paintings as well as around fifteen-seventeen drawings are now known, among them ours. He was born in Brittany and studied in Paris in the late 1880s. He took up printmaking with enthusiasm in late 1890 and 1891. The work that he did on Parisian themes was very much influenced by the posters and the caricatures of Toulouse-Lautrec and Anquetin as well as the Nabis, while Brittany subjects are made in a synthesis style closer to the art of Emile Bernard, Paul Sérusier and Roderic O’Conor, what is called the School of Pont-Aven. These two sources of influences intertwine throughout the years 1891-1893, making chronological assertions difficult.

It is worth mentioning the interesting provenance. The present drawing, unrecorded in the literature, come from the artist Paul Sérusier that Seguin met in 1892 in Brittany, probably at Marie Henry bar. At the end of his life, overwhelmed by disease and poverty, Seguin was taken in by Sérusier in June 1903 at Châteauneuf-du-Faou, where he died in December of the same year. Henriette Boutaric was the best friend of Serusier’s wife, Marguerite. In 1950, at Marguerite’s death, she inherited the Sérusier atelier and its content from where the present sheet comes. From that year, Henriette spent the rest of her life promoting Serusier’s work as well as Nabis and Pont-Aven artists, up to her death in the 80’s.

This composition stemming from Pont-Aven landscapes and sources can be dated around late 1892 or early 1893, after Seguin left Paris to Pont-Aven in spring 1892. That year, he met Emile Bernard and August Renoir at the Hotel Julia in Pont-Aven; he also visited Maufra and Filiger at Marie Henry bar in Le Pouldu. He designed there the first landscapes of

In fine condition; the top of the sheet still with the full holes line, like in a sketch book.

Claude-Emile Schuffenecker

1851 Fresne-Saint-Mamès – Paris 1934

Landscape with an orange tree

Pastel on cardboard, ca. 1889-91 Atelier stamp lower right Size 497 x 660 mm Provenance Private collection, France

confers a strong decorative quality to the work, typical of the Pont-Aven School. The orange tree is also highlighted by this darker background, and becomes more distinctive than the figure immersed in the meadow. In this seemingly simple view of the countryside, the composition is perfectly built: the figure is framed by the two trees, the little barrier and the horizon.

An astonishing pastel by Schuffenecker with an extraordinary density of textures. It was during his continuous excursions in the countryside of the Chevreuse valley, especially in Meudon, that the artist produced many studies of landscapes. The present pastel can be associated with another pastel from the same region at the Cleveland Museum of Art; the rocks in the foreground, the houses and the orange tree are all the same. However, here, the vision of the place is quite different; the early morning light infuses the landscape with golden effects. This luminous impression, along with the intensity of the textures that offers a material quality to the air, distinguish our piece from other Schuffenercker’s landscapes.

Painted around 1889-91, this artwork also illustrates the impact of his friend Georges Seurat and his former master Camille Pissarro. The small touches of bright colours producing this radiant effect also generate an impression of two dimensions, in the likes of the neo-impressionist landscapes. As protector of Paul Gauguin, collector and exhibitions’ instigator, Schuffenecker’s works had always been slightly neglected by art historians and the public. However this work reminds us of his authentic creativity and how he successfully combined the various influences of the time, to create his own style.

If the artist inherited the focus of the rendering of a colourful atmosphere from the impressionism, the present work also demonstrates the influence that the Pont-Aven School had on Schuffenecker. We are transported into nature vibrating in this orange haze. In the background, the little houses are surrounded by a field of colours and abstract forms creating a more chaotic skyline that contrasts the vertical lines of the field and sky. This demonstrates how Schuffenecker mastered the technic of pastel. The succession of these different textures

The present drawing, unrecorded in the literature, has been concealed in a private collection until recently, before arriving to the market in a very good condition and freshness.

Georges de Feure

1868 – Paris – 1943

Woman with birds or La Femme-fleur

Watercolor on wove paper, ca. 1893-94 Signed lower right De Feure Sheet 1000 x 810 mm Provenance Private collection, Belgium

Woman with birds is a fundamental work in the Symbolist art of Georges de Feure. The richly colored tangle of vegetation and exotic birds date this composition to late 1893 or early 1894, while the solitary female figure heralds the femme fatale that would come to dominate his art of the mid 1890’s. Given its date, large size and importance, this work was most likely one of the thirty-nine included in his first solo exhibition, Aquarelles par Georges de Feure, held in March 1894. However, identification remains problematic. The catalogue was unillustrated and the titles nothing more than laconic and cynical epithets such as “Angoisse” or “Cruauté.”

starting point for the next generation of Fauve and Abstract artists. While the idea of silence was a major theme of Symbolist art with fine examples by Redon, Khnopff, Levy-Dhurmer etc., de Feure’s Woman with birds resonates with sound. The whole composition is filled with the chattering and screeching of the birds defending their territory from the menacing beak and claws of the marauder hovering ominously above them. Like an apparition, a woman emerges from the luxuriant vegetation. Wearing a blue dress with green spots, she contemplates a small bird perched upon her hand, seemingly unconcerned by this drama. De Feure has paid particular attention to rendering her face, creating volume through contour and use of the airbrush rather than modelling. Her pale, lilac colored lips add a touch of unreality, her sparkling eyes staring intently at the small bird. One of the aspects that de Feure developed in his version of the femme fatale was her ability to work magic and wreak havoc through her manipulation of flowers, thus giving his own personal slant to the Art Nouveau femme-fleur.

Despite having the titles, the visitors and critics alike had difficulty in understanding just exactly what was being expressed, one reviewer noting that de Feure was “an artist whose work is never banal, but whose symbolism is not always accessible”1. Mallarme’s notion of “suggestion that is the dream” motivated de Feure to create an art clearly addressing the elite of the Symbolist milieu, which would only reveal its secrets degree by degree after reflection and contemplation.

It is tempting to see the woman portrayed here as similarly exercising her power through her contemplation of the small bird, poised calmly or mesmerized by such a powerful gaze. Across the high horizon there stretches a fortified town, the only other trace of human existence in the work. Empty and silent, and somewhat foreboding, it is deep red in color, the same deep red as the attacking bird. In considering this intriguing work, our eyes are led to explore each detail, marvelling at its beauty and questioning its meaning in much the same way as the visitors to the 1894 exhibition must have done. Woman with birds has not yet rendered all its secrets.

At the same time he sought to give depth to the subject matter, he used the symbolic, emotive power of line and color to evoke an air of unreality and sensuality. This dual aspect in the Symbolist art of de Feure did not go unnoticed and was aptly summarized by the writer Camille Mauclair when he described the artist as “un décorateur à idées”2. It was such works as Woman with birds that prompted him to exclaim that he had found “at last a man who takes notice of what a color represents in itself, who places a violet next to a green because it has a special meaning”3. The implications of this non-representational use of line and color would be the 1 L’Art français, 31 March 1894. 2 Camille Mauclair, Le Mercure de France, May 1894. 3 Loc. cit.

Leon Spilliaert

1881 Ostend – Brussels 1946

Self-Portrait

Watercolor and ink on wove paper, ca. 1907 Sheet 184 x 117 mm Reference Anne Adriaens-Pannier, Spilliaert le regard de l’âme, Brussels, Ludion, 2006, p. 65, no. 81 (ill.) Provenance Spilliaert’s heirs; Private collection, Belgium Literature Anne Adriaens-Pannier, Leon Spilliaert ou la beauté de l’intelligence du cœur, Antwerp, Pandora, p. 94, no. 18 (ill.)

Amongst the most fascinating works of the early 20th century, Léon Spilliaert’ self-portraits take a significant and iconic place, as if his work would only come down to this, notwithstanding its substantial size. On top of that, it is extremely rare to find. According to extensive record and research, and as far as we can assert it, there might be only four self-portraits from this period (1907-08) left in private collections, including this one, compared to about fifteen in public collections. The present work is ca. 1907, the most creative year in Spilliaert’s introspection that saw him exploring the possibilities of the self-portrait with great intensity and appears to be the key element in the painter’s research.

Meanwhile, the discovery of the works of Fernand Khnopff, Théo Van Rysselberghe, George Minne, Félicien Rops and James Ensor and also French artists such as Odilon Redon had a strong impact on his art. From 1903, Spilliaert then produced self-portraits which were introspectively much more complex and penetrating. In a letter to Paule Deman (Edmond’s daughter) dated end of 1904, Spilliaert himself describes his character as “anxious and feverish”. The physical suffering later caused by his stomach ulcer, would increase this disposition. His tormented face with the eyes lost in the dark shadows of their sockets, becomes even more dramatic by a three quarters pose, leaving a whole part of the face quite indeterminate. This move towards Expressionism would lead to wild interpretations and many strange and disturbing visions of himself.

He produced his first self-portrait, dated 2 December 1902. While this first attempt revealed an applied, almost academic realism, the later drawings would be much more audacious.

Jules (Istres) Contencin

1851 Istres – Rennes 1925

Portrait of Théodore Rivière

Oil on canvas, ca. 1907 Signed lower right ISTRES CONTENCIN Canvas 65 x 85 cm Provenance Private collection, Brussels

found inspiration for the bronze and ivory La Danseuse Javanaise (Ministère des Affaires étrangères, Paris) among others. The present work can be dated back to that time, showing the artist modeling a Cambodian woman dancer.

The present portrait depicts the sculptor Auguste-Louis Théodore-Rivière (1857 Toulouse - Paris 1912) at work. Apprentice of François Jouffroy and Alexandre Falguière, Rivière was also studying at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts up to 1886, while exhibiting between 1875 and 1885 at the Salons des Artistes Français. Following a journey in Tunisia in 1890, he quickly established himself as one of the major orientalist sculptors, with a predilection for polychromy; mixing or using ivory, onyx, gold, silver, tin, bronze, alabaster and marble, as seen in his Salammbô or Brodeuse Tunisienne (Musée d’Orsay, Paris). He reached his hour of glory between 1894 and 1910.

Born in the South but a lover of Brittany, Jules Contencin focused his art on representing customs and peasants from the Armorican coasts, as in the Portrait de vieille bretonne, 1894 (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes) or in Le vieux Pêcheur breton (Musée d’Art et d’Archéologie, Martigues). His scenes are a mix between impressionism and realism. He truly was a talented painter, educated at L’Ecole d’Art of the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence, and later in Paris with Gérôme at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts. However he did not paint much and soon became in 1885 an art teacher in Rennes. He married the Countess de Prez de la Ville Tual – her arms are actually on the present work, upper right – and he carried on painting from time to time until the end of his life.

Following the 1904’s investiture of King Sisowath in Cambodia and the retrocession of the old provinces of Battambang to Cambodia in the 1907 Franco-Siamese Treaty, a statue of the King was commissioned to Theodore Rivière, who did most of the sculpture in France. The Protectorate paid for its transportation to Phnom Penh and it was installed at the base of Wat Phnom in 1909. Rivière did the journey, where he

Index of artist names Bonnard, Pierre Bresdin, Rodolphe Contencin, Jules (Istres) de Feure, Georges Degouve de Nuncques, William Delacroix, Eugène De Nittis, Giuseppe Friedrich, Caspar David Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Khnopff, Fernand Laugé, Achille Lemmen, Georges Mellery, Xavier Schuffenecker, Claude-Emile Seguin, Armand Spilliaert, Leon Steinlen, Théophile Alexandre

10 4 17 15 7 3 5 1 2 8 12 9 6 14 13 16 11

Front cover

Achille Laugé, Still-Life, cat. 12 (detail) Catalogue entries

Eric Gillis Noémie Goldman Christina Grummt Ian Millman Design

Arthur Calame, Brussels Printed by

Impressor Pauwels Sprl., in Brussels in May 2015 Back cover

Fernand Khnopff, Landscape in Fosset, cat. 8 (detail) Translation/Editing

Jean-Marie Gillis Priscilla Adade-Helledy Photographs

L’Atelier de l’Imagier, Brussels Piotr Dzumala, Paris Next page

Alfred Kubin, Head with cut nose Photogravure

Olivier Dengis, Mistral Bvba Special thanks (by alphabetical order) to Antoine Bechet, Marie-Pierre Colas, Charlotte Corbusier, Virginia Gamna, Melissa Hughes, Dominique Le Jeune, Jawad Maher, Mathieu Néouze, Marie-Astrid Neulens, Valérie Quelen, Diane Stordiau, Nicole Tamburini, Willem Truffino, Etienne Van Vyve.

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