Orientalism and Odalisques
See also : Top 10 Painting Orientalism 1830-1900 Picasso Picasso 1940-1960 Kandinsky France Matisse Holland II Groups The Woman Nude
Chronology : 20th century 1904 1907 1909 1920-1929 1923 1937 1942 1950-1959 1955
Chronology : 20th century 1904 1907 1909 1920-1929 1923 1937 1942 1950-1959 1955
1883 Antony and Cleopatra by Alma-Tadema
2011 SOLD 29 M$ including premium by Sotheby's
narrated in 2020
The Dutch artist Lawrence Alma-Tadema moved to England in 1870. Taking advantage of the pre-Raphaelite fashion for ancient themes, he spent the rest of his career there. His business was flourishing and meticulously managed, and he was covered with honors in Victorian and Edwardian England.
Alma-Tadema paints the antique passions, with a sharp drawing and bright colors that evoke the Orient. He depicts the most beautiful women and their lovers, languid to the limits of debauchery. He surrounds them with luxurious objects for which he accumulates a strong documentation through his trips to Greco-Roman sites, his visits to museums and his abundant collection of photographs.
In 1883 Alma-Tadema is inspired by Shakespeare's play to paint the First meeting of Antony and Cleopatra for a private commission. The queen displays her beauty as in a window, in a barge covered with a canopy. The lover docks in a sort of gondola driven by Roman soldiers. Between the two, a slave girl plays the flute.
The composition is bold, letting see through the boats the sea and some elements of antique architecture. According to historians, this scene took place in Tarsus in 41 BCE. Never mind : it especially gives Victorian England the envy of the scandalous pleasures which indulgently appealed the greatest characters of antiquity.
This Antony and Cleopatra is the opus CCXLVI in the chronological list maintained by Alma-Tadema for avoiding counterfeits. This oil on panel 66 x 91 cm was sold for $ 29M including premium by Sotheby's on May 5, 2011 over a lower estimate of $ 3M, lot 65. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The display of an instant effect into a dramatic action is a specialty of Alma-Tadema and will influence the scenarios and even some framings of the cinema. He is in some way an orientalist precursor of Norman Rockwell.
Alma-Tadema paints the antique passions, with a sharp drawing and bright colors that evoke the Orient. He depicts the most beautiful women and their lovers, languid to the limits of debauchery. He surrounds them with luxurious objects for which he accumulates a strong documentation through his trips to Greco-Roman sites, his visits to museums and his abundant collection of photographs.
In 1883 Alma-Tadema is inspired by Shakespeare's play to paint the First meeting of Antony and Cleopatra for a private commission. The queen displays her beauty as in a window, in a barge covered with a canopy. The lover docks in a sort of gondola driven by Roman soldiers. Between the two, a slave girl plays the flute.
The composition is bold, letting see through the boats the sea and some elements of antique architecture. According to historians, this scene took place in Tarsus in 41 BCE. Never mind : it especially gives Victorian England the envy of the scandalous pleasures which indulgently appealed the greatest characters of antiquity.
This Antony and Cleopatra is the opus CCXLVI in the chronological list maintained by Alma-Tadema for avoiding counterfeits. This oil on panel 66 x 91 cm was sold for $ 29M including premium by Sotheby's on May 5, 2011 over a lower estimate of $ 3M, lot 65. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The display of an instant effect into a dramatic action is a specialty of Alma-Tadema and will influence the scenarios and even some framings of the cinema. He is in some way an orientalist precursor of Norman Rockwell.
1904 The Antique Nile of Alma-Tadema
2010 SOLD 35.9 M$ including premium
No painter is more typical of Victorian and Edwardian art than Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. We are therefore surprised to know that this artist, in fact, was of Dutch origin.
He followed a theme that appealed to the public of his time: the exotic antiques. He was amazed by the collections of the British Museum, and featured his characters amidst monuments for which he relied on photographs. He particularly liked the marble seats in which he showed languid ladies.
Strong personality, he had managed his career and became wealthy and famous. His name was Laurens Alma Tadema, which he adapted to be better positioned in alphabetical lists. He gave an opus number to each of his paintings, creating himself a record that protected his work against counterfeits.
He would not adapt to the trends of modern art, and was forgotten for more than half a century after his death.
Opus CCCLXXVII is best known in the art market, having been sold $ 2.7 million including premium at Christie's on May 25, 1995. This is a commissioned work for the benefit of the engineer who had invited him in 1902 at the opening of the Aswan Dam.
Completed in 1904, this large oil on canvas, 137 x 213 cm, shows a scene from the finding of Moses on the Nile. Pharaoh's daughter is surrounded by an opulent procession of servants and slaves. From the top of her carriage, she fondly looks at the baby in his basket, carried by two women.
This lot is again for sale, estimated $ 3M, by Sotheby's in New York on November 4.
POST SALE COMMENT
Two very high results were recorded in this sale of Belle Epoque art. The painting of Alma-Tadema, subject of this article, was sold for $ 35.9 million including premium. A woman's portrait painted in 1892 by Boldini, 201 x 101 cm, was sold for $ 6.5 million including premium on an estimate of $ 1M.
Analyses will certainly be made to understand this shift in the market for a period that seemed difficult to sell. We can already say with certainty that some artworks will reappear on the market. Expect Gérôme, Béraud, Bouguereau, ...
The image is shared post sale by Artdaily.
Shared on Wikimedia :
He followed a theme that appealed to the public of his time: the exotic antiques. He was amazed by the collections of the British Museum, and featured his characters amidst monuments for which he relied on photographs. He particularly liked the marble seats in which he showed languid ladies.
Strong personality, he had managed his career and became wealthy and famous. His name was Laurens Alma Tadema, which he adapted to be better positioned in alphabetical lists. He gave an opus number to each of his paintings, creating himself a record that protected his work against counterfeits.
He would not adapt to the trends of modern art, and was forgotten for more than half a century after his death.
Opus CCCLXXVII is best known in the art market, having been sold $ 2.7 million including premium at Christie's on May 25, 1995. This is a commissioned work for the benefit of the engineer who had invited him in 1902 at the opening of the Aswan Dam.
Completed in 1904, this large oil on canvas, 137 x 213 cm, shows a scene from the finding of Moses on the Nile. Pharaoh's daughter is surrounded by an opulent procession of servants and slaves. From the top of her carriage, she fondly looks at the baby in his basket, carried by two women.
This lot is again for sale, estimated $ 3M, by Sotheby's in New York on November 4.
POST SALE COMMENT
Two very high results were recorded in this sale of Belle Epoque art. The painting of Alma-Tadema, subject of this article, was sold for $ 35.9 million including premium. A woman's portrait painted in 1892 by Boldini, 201 x 101 cm, was sold for $ 6.5 million including premium on an estimate of $ 1M.
Analyses will certainly be made to understand this shift in the market for a period that seemed difficult to sell. We can already say with certainty that some artworks will reappear on the market. Expect Gérôme, Béraud, Bouguereau, ...
The image is shared post sale by Artdaily.
Shared on Wikimedia :
1907 The Light of the Golden Horn
2019 SOLD for $ 16.2M including premium
Passionate about sailing, Paul Signac immerses himself in the atmosphere of the ports. In the spring of 1907, for visiting Constantinople, he made an exception to his practice by traveling by train. He probably feared for the safety of a private boat in this military port.
Signac had seen Venice in 1905. Yet it is in Constantinople that he integrates the extreme conjunctions of light and mist of Turner's Mediterranean masterpieces. He concentrates his sketches on the Golden Horn and its minarets that go up to the sky.
Back in France, Signac wants to express this dazzle. He takes a canvas in standard '50', 89 x 116 cm, which is the largest size compatible with the painstaking of his pointillist technique. After a month of effort, surprised by the unusual difficulty of this work, he scraps a first painting and starts again from scratch.
The second version is satisfactory. Signac retrieved the pleasure of expressing a great sun, as in Saint-Tropez fifteen years earlier, but this time he replaces the blinding yellow by a subtle palette of pinks and purples. Even better : he renounces for this view to a strict division between the color dots, accepting a blending inspired by Turner's art.
This painting is by far the most achieved of the nine or ten oils on canvas of Constantinople painted by Signac in 1907. In 1937, two years after his death, it was bought at auction by his daughter and her husband. It was sold for £ 8.8M including premium by Christie's on February 7, 2012. It is estimated $ 14M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on November 12, lot 21.
Signac had seen Venice in 1905. Yet it is in Constantinople that he integrates the extreme conjunctions of light and mist of Turner's Mediterranean masterpieces. He concentrates his sketches on the Golden Horn and its minarets that go up to the sky.
Back in France, Signac wants to express this dazzle. He takes a canvas in standard '50', 89 x 116 cm, which is the largest size compatible with the painstaking of his pointillist technique. After a month of effort, surprised by the unusual difficulty of this work, he scraps a first painting and starts again from scratch.
The second version is satisfactory. Signac retrieved the pleasure of expressing a great sun, as in Saint-Tropez fifteen years earlier, but this time he replaces the blinding yellow by a subtle palette of pinks and purples. Even better : he renounces for this view to a strict division between the color dots, accepting a blending inspired by Turner's art.
This painting is by far the most achieved of the nine or ten oils on canvas of Constantinople painted by Signac in 1907. In 1937, two years after his death, it was bought at auction by his daughter and her husband. It was sold for £ 8.8M including premium by Christie's on February 7, 2012. It is estimated $ 14M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on November 12, lot 21.
1909 The Seer of the Beach
2014 SOLD 17.2 M$ including premium
In Murnau in 1909, Wassily Kandinsky develops his theories on artistic creation and illustrates them in a completely new pictorial language.
The theme of 'Improvisations' is well recorded. Some images show a seer of modern art in the assault on the fortress of classicism, although Kandinsky did not himself propose such a definition. His 'Impressions' are more difficult to categorize because the artist has not assigned this title to actual artworks.
However Strandszene (beach scene), oil on board 53 x 67 cm, retroactively appears as one of the best demonstrators of the artistic revolution brought by Kandinsky's Impressions.
This painting was executed at the end of 1909, not before a preparatory drawing dated August 3 in his sketchbook. As in Improvisations, vertical references disappear and colors are violent and even threatening. Some characters are shown but the narrative aspect is absent or impossible to decode.
The non localized beach is of course not Murnau which is a village in the Bavarian mountains. The long white robe of a character classifies it as an Orientalist painting. Tunisia was a favorite theme of Kandinsky when he was still a Fauvist landscape artist.
The great novelty of this composition is that it relies exclusively on a memory of impressions of the artist, without recourse of any previous work or to a photograph, thus excluding almost totally the reality of shapes.
Wassily probably painted it for display in a the house newly purchased in Murnau by his companion Gabriele Münter. He then kept it for nearly thirty years. Yet it is one of the earliest precursors of the release of the forms from any figurative or narrative intention that will lead to the concept of abstract art.
Strandszene is estimated $ 16M, for sale by Christie's in New York on May 6. I invite you to play the video shared by the auction house.
POST SALE COMMENT
Good result for this difficult Kandinsky painting which was from the best period: $ 17.2 million including premium.
The theme of 'Improvisations' is well recorded. Some images show a seer of modern art in the assault on the fortress of classicism, although Kandinsky did not himself propose such a definition. His 'Impressions' are more difficult to categorize because the artist has not assigned this title to actual artworks.
However Strandszene (beach scene), oil on board 53 x 67 cm, retroactively appears as one of the best demonstrators of the artistic revolution brought by Kandinsky's Impressions.
This painting was executed at the end of 1909, not before a preparatory drawing dated August 3 in his sketchbook. As in Improvisations, vertical references disappear and colors are violent and even threatening. Some characters are shown but the narrative aspect is absent or impossible to decode.
The non localized beach is of course not Murnau which is a village in the Bavarian mountains. The long white robe of a character classifies it as an Orientalist painting. Tunisia was a favorite theme of Kandinsky when he was still a Fauvist landscape artist.
The great novelty of this composition is that it relies exclusively on a memory of impressions of the artist, without recourse of any previous work or to a photograph, thus excluding almost totally the reality of shapes.
Wassily probably painted it for display in a the house newly purchased in Murnau by his companion Gabriele Münter. He then kept it for nearly thirty years. Yet it is one of the earliest precursors of the release of the forms from any figurative or narrative intention that will lead to the concept of abstract art.
Strandszene is estimated $ 16M, for sale by Christie's in New York on May 6. I invite you to play the video shared by the auction house.
POST SALE COMMENT
Good result for this difficult Kandinsky painting which was from the best period: $ 17.2 million including premium.
1923 A Nice Farniente
2018 SOLD for $ 81M including premium
Installed in Nice after the war, Henri Matisse resumes his research of colors and compositions with a serenity that Paris could not bring him. With Antoinette and even better with Henriette, he maintains an intimate connivance with his models. Their body becomes the central element of the artwork.
Henriette poses complacently because she appreciates the beauty of her athletic body. In parallel to nude studies, Matisse stages her in orientalist attires that are a new excuse for the shimmer of colors in her surroundings. Her portraits exudes her confidence in the artist without inhibiting her sensuality.
On May 8 in New York, Christie's sells as lot 8 Odalisque couchée aux magnolias, oil on canvas 61 x 81 cm painted in 1923. The nice intimacy of this artwork had seduced David and Peggy Rockefeller.
The young woman enjoys the pleasures of idleness, ready to nap or just finishing it. She is reclining on a chaise longue probably in the gate of a veranda. She wears on her shoulders a light shirt completely opened to expose the naked chest to the beneficent sun of the Côte d'Azur.
The orientalist impression is brought by the Persian harem pants which loosely cover the lower part of her body and by the screen behind her whose right panel is centered on two large magnolia flowers.
Please watch the video shared by Christie's.
Henriette poses complacently because she appreciates the beauty of her athletic body. In parallel to nude studies, Matisse stages her in orientalist attires that are a new excuse for the shimmer of colors in her surroundings. Her portraits exudes her confidence in the artist without inhibiting her sensuality.
On May 8 in New York, Christie's sells as lot 8 Odalisque couchée aux magnolias, oil on canvas 61 x 81 cm painted in 1923. The nice intimacy of this artwork had seduced David and Peggy Rockefeller.
The young woman enjoys the pleasures of idleness, ready to nap or just finishing it. She is reclining on a chaise longue probably in the gate of a veranda. She wears on her shoulders a light shirt completely opened to expose the naked chest to the beneficent sun of the Côte d'Azur.
The orientalist impression is brought by the Persian harem pants which loosely cover the lower part of her body and by the screen behind her whose right panel is centered on two large magnolia flowers.
Please watch the video shared by Christie's.
1937 Odalisque by Matisse
2007 SOLD 33.6 M$ including premium by Christie's
Link to catalogue.
1942 A Real Princess for Matisse
2015 SOLD for £ 15.8M including premium
Matisse's orientalist approach was the excuse for lush compositions where the balance of colors dominated over the detailed line. However, he was working with European and Slavic models.
Matisse certainly appreciated this gap in his art. In the summer of 1940, seeing by chance a young Turkish woman, he is seduced by the regularity of her oriental face. Nézy is 21 years old. Great-granddaughter of Sultan Abdul Hamid, she lives in exile in Nice with her grandmother who accepts that she sits for the artist.
Matisse became seriously ill. Emerging from a long hospitalization in May 1941, he returned to his workshop at the Hôtel Régina. Considering his healing as an unexpected luck, he goes back to an intense work, realizing many drawings of his two muses of that time, Lydia and Nézy.
Painted in January 1942, the Odalisque au fauteuil noir is a portrait of Nézy. This oil on canvas 38 x 46 cm is the culmination of the oriental theme by Matisse. The realistic depiction is limited to the face and arm along with a vase of flowers on a small table. Clothing and decor are a symphony of colors that anticipates the researches of the abstract expressionism.
The Odalisque was sold for £ 6.6M including premium at Christie's on 22 June 2004. It is estimated £ 9M, for sale by Sotheby's in London on February 3, lot 7.
Matisse certainly appreciated this gap in his art. In the summer of 1940, seeing by chance a young Turkish woman, he is seduced by the regularity of her oriental face. Nézy is 21 years old. Great-granddaughter of Sultan Abdul Hamid, she lives in exile in Nice with her grandmother who accepts that she sits for the artist.
Matisse became seriously ill. Emerging from a long hospitalization in May 1941, he returned to his workshop at the Hôtel Régina. Considering his healing as an unexpected luck, he goes back to an intense work, realizing many drawings of his two muses of that time, Lydia and Nézy.
Painted in January 1942, the Odalisque au fauteuil noir is a portrait of Nézy. This oil on canvas 38 x 46 cm is the culmination of the oriental theme by Matisse. The realistic depiction is limited to the face and arm along with a vase of flowers on a small table. Clothing and decor are a symphony of colors that anticipates the researches of the abstract expressionism.
The Odalisque was sold for £ 6.6M including premium at Christie's on 22 June 2004. It is estimated £ 9M, for sale by Sotheby's in London on February 3, lot 7.
1955 The Homage by Picasso to his own Art
2015 SOLD for $ 180M including premium
The Femmes d'Alger by Delacroix, by inspiring Picasso, had a role in the genesis of modern painting. Executed in Paris in 1907, the painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon shows a group of women. Unlike in Delacroix, they are naked. They are not in the hot atmosphere of a harem but their offering is venal.
It is difficult to recognize the influence of Delacroix upon the Demoiselles because the tribal art that inspired the deconstruction of forms is the real origin of Cubism. Other influences have also been identified for this painting which is one of the most important breakthroughs of Western art : el Greco, Cézanne, Gauguin.
Matisse died in 1954. His Odalisques were famous. Picasso had not used this theme which exacerbated the colors and he was somehow jealous of his late friend. He disguises Jacqueline but this is not enough to equal the glory of his rival. To resume his place in the history of art, he resuscitates the Femmes d'Alger in a series of fifteen paintings numbered A to O.
The series is an imitation of the styles of Picasso's career starting from his invention of Cubism. The latest version, O, oil on canvas 114 x 146 cm achieved on 14 February 1955, appears as a synthesis of this rather disparate set, like the ultimate completion of Pablo's art on that date.
It takes much imagination to see Delacroix's influence in the Version O, but the comparison with the Demoiselles is obvious. The women are naked or half dressed but in a later cubism style that excites the imagination by blurring the vision. The standing woman on the left displays a much better readability that joins the then recent art of Pablo.
Pablo has always enjoyed to confront himself with the great masters. The large mirror anticipates his series of Las Meninas painted two years later.
Version O of Les Femmes d'Alger was sold for $ 32M including premium by Christie's on 10 November 1997. It is for sale on May 11 at Christie's in New York, lot 8A. The press release of March 25 indicates an estimate in the region of $ 140M.
The low resolution image below is shared by Wikimedia for fair use :
It is difficult to recognize the influence of Delacroix upon the Demoiselles because the tribal art that inspired the deconstruction of forms is the real origin of Cubism. Other influences have also been identified for this painting which is one of the most important breakthroughs of Western art : el Greco, Cézanne, Gauguin.
Matisse died in 1954. His Odalisques were famous. Picasso had not used this theme which exacerbated the colors and he was somehow jealous of his late friend. He disguises Jacqueline but this is not enough to equal the glory of his rival. To resume his place in the history of art, he resuscitates the Femmes d'Alger in a series of fifteen paintings numbered A to O.
The series is an imitation of the styles of Picasso's career starting from his invention of Cubism. The latest version, O, oil on canvas 114 x 146 cm achieved on 14 February 1955, appears as a synthesis of this rather disparate set, like the ultimate completion of Pablo's art on that date.
It takes much imagination to see Delacroix's influence in the Version O, but the comparison with the Demoiselles is obvious. The women are naked or half dressed but in a later cubism style that excites the imagination by blurring the vision. The standing woman on the left displays a much better readability that joins the then recent art of Pablo.
Pablo has always enjoyed to confront himself with the great masters. The large mirror anticipates his series of Las Meninas painted two years later.
Version O of Les Femmes d'Alger was sold for $ 32M including premium by Christie's on 10 November 1997. It is for sale on May 11 at Christie's in New York, lot 8A. The press release of March 25 indicates an estimate in the region of $ 140M.
The low resolution image below is shared by Wikimedia for fair use :
1955 Femme accroupie au Costume Turc by Picasso
2007 SOLD for $ 31M including premium by Christie's
narrated in 2014 before the sale of another painting by Christie's (see below)
Matisse's death in November 1954 deprives Picasso of a friend with whom he liked to compare his ideas about the essentials of art. Little interested so far by Orientalism, Pablo begins on December 13 his series of fifteen paintings titled Les Femmes d'Alger.
The theme is ostensibly following Delacroix but Picasso leaves no doubt about his real intention by declaring not without humor that he got the legacy of Matisse's odalisques. Remind that Les Femmes d'Alger is a project probably unique in the history of art where the artist carefully imitated several styles used by himself during his long career.
A new series of paintings beginning on November 19, 1955 combines this orientalist fantasy with the exploration of the face and body of his new muse Jacqueline Roque, shown in clothes and attitudes of a Turkish harem from Pablo's imagination. The style resumes the normal course of evolution of Picasso's art.
On February 4, 2014, Christie's sold for £ 17M including premium the half length portrait in an armchair, oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm painted on 20 November 1955, where Jacqueline is adorned with multicolored turban and vest. Her face is almost realistic.
Another oil on canvas of the same series, 116 x 89 cm, dated 26 November 1955 is titled Femme accroupie au costume turc (Jacqueline). It was sold for $ 31M including premium by Christie's on November 6, 2007, lot 73. Drawing attention to the body rather than to the face, this figure is more erotic.
The theme is ostensibly following Delacroix but Picasso leaves no doubt about his real intention by declaring not without humor that he got the legacy of Matisse's odalisques. Remind that Les Femmes d'Alger is a project probably unique in the history of art where the artist carefully imitated several styles used by himself during his long career.
A new series of paintings beginning on November 19, 1955 combines this orientalist fantasy with the exploration of the face and body of his new muse Jacqueline Roque, shown in clothes and attitudes of a Turkish harem from Pablo's imagination. The style resumes the normal course of evolution of Picasso's art.
On February 4, 2014, Christie's sold for £ 17M including premium the half length portrait in an armchair, oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm painted on 20 November 1955, where Jacqueline is adorned with multicolored turban and vest. Her face is almost realistic.
Another oil on canvas of the same series, 116 x 89 cm, dated 26 November 1955 is titled Femme accroupie au costume turc (Jacqueline). It was sold for $ 31M including premium by Christie's on November 6, 2007, lot 73. Drawing attention to the body rather than to the face, this figure is more erotic.
1955 The Small Versions of the Femmes d'Alger
2020 SOLD for $ 29M including premium
Henri Matisse died on November 3, 1954. Talkative about his own art but secret about his emotional reactions, Picasso did not communicate but it seems that the death of his old rival had deeply shocked him.
Picasso conceives a work which could appear as the continuation of the orientalist scenes by Matisse. His new muse, Jacqueline, resembles one of the odalisques in the Femmes d'Alger by Delacroix. The new project will be an amalgamation of that Delacroix and of the Nu bleu by Matisse.
From December 13, 1954 to January 18, 1955, Picasso painted six sketches 46 x 55 cm, sometimes limited to one detail. The day before the end of this first phase, he made an oil on canvas 54 x 65 cm which foreshadows the final work by its overall composition, its brilliant colors and the post-Cubist interweaving of forms.
The next phase is devoted to larger formats, including grisaille paintings which allow the details of the drawing to be worked out. The final version, 114 x 146 cm, is painted on February 14, 1955. The result meets what was undoubtedly Picasso's main objective : making a modern counterweight to the Demoiselles d'Avignon.
The fifteen paintings are exhibited together to be sold as a batch. For that purpose, they should not be considered as fourteen sketches and a final painting but as fifteen versions on the same theme, numbered from A to O in the chronological order of their execution.
Thus the dispersion will not be made under the control of the artist or his dealers but by the Ganz couple who bought the set in 1956 for owning the final version (O). The Ganzs will also keep for their collection one of the most complete sketches (C), a style typical of the time of Marie-Thérèse (H) and two grisailles of the final phase (K and M).
The selection of the Ganzs is much judicious. It does not include the 54 x 65 cm complete version of the first phase (F), probably because it does not bring much beside the O version. The F version will be sold by Christie's in New York on July 10, lot 52. The press release of May 15 devoted to a general view of the ONE auction event announces an estimate in the region of $ 25M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Picasso conceives a work which could appear as the continuation of the orientalist scenes by Matisse. His new muse, Jacqueline, resembles one of the odalisques in the Femmes d'Alger by Delacroix. The new project will be an amalgamation of that Delacroix and of the Nu bleu by Matisse.
From December 13, 1954 to January 18, 1955, Picasso painted six sketches 46 x 55 cm, sometimes limited to one detail. The day before the end of this first phase, he made an oil on canvas 54 x 65 cm which foreshadows the final work by its overall composition, its brilliant colors and the post-Cubist interweaving of forms.
The next phase is devoted to larger formats, including grisaille paintings which allow the details of the drawing to be worked out. The final version, 114 x 146 cm, is painted on February 14, 1955. The result meets what was undoubtedly Picasso's main objective : making a modern counterweight to the Demoiselles d'Avignon.
The fifteen paintings are exhibited together to be sold as a batch. For that purpose, they should not be considered as fourteen sketches and a final painting but as fifteen versions on the same theme, numbered from A to O in the chronological order of their execution.
Thus the dispersion will not be made under the control of the artist or his dealers but by the Ganz couple who bought the set in 1956 for owning the final version (O). The Ganzs will also keep for their collection one of the most complete sketches (C), a style typical of the time of Marie-Thérèse (H) and two grisailles of the final phase (K and M).
The selection of the Ganzs is much judicious. It does not include the 54 x 65 cm complete version of the first phase (F), probably because it does not bring much beside the O version. The F version will be sold by Christie's in New York on July 10, lot 52. The press release of May 15 devoted to a general view of the ONE auction event announces an estimate in the region of $ 25M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1955 The Year of the Femmes d'Alger
2014 SOLD 17 M£ including premium
Fully narrated above.
A few months after Les Femmes d'Alger, Picasso used the more intimate theme of his muse Jacqueline in an Orientalist attire from his imagination.
On February 4 in London , Christie's sells as lot 28 the half length portrait in an armchair, oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm painted on 20 November 1955, where Jacqueline is adorned with multicolored turban and vest. Her face is almost realistic. This painting titled Femme au costume turc dans un fauteuil is estimated £ 15M.
A few months after Les Femmes d'Alger, Picasso used the more intimate theme of his muse Jacqueline in an Orientalist attire from his imagination.
On February 4 in London , Christie's sells as lot 28 the half length portrait in an armchair, oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm painted on 20 November 1955, where Jacqueline is adorned with multicolored turban and vest. Her face is almost realistic. This painting titled Femme au costume turc dans un fauteuil is estimated £ 15M.
1955 Picasso revisiting the Women of Algiers
2011 SOLD 21.3 M$ including premium
The series of the Femmes d'Alger painted by Picasso between December 13, 1954 and February 14, 1955 does not belong to one single phase of the art of the master, but to many. Taking as a pretext Delacroix's painting, he produced 15 variations, very different from one another, numbered A to O.
It is likely that Picasso, just after the death of Matisse, wanted to conduct a parallel study of art history and of his personal contributions. Some are in color, others in grisaille (a term also used in its French version in English texts).
Five of them remained in the Ganz collection until the death of the collector. The version O, 114 x 146 cm, which can be considered as the culmination of the group, was sold for $ 32M including premium at Christie's on November 10, 1997.
Ganz had bought all the series to Kahnweiler but the version L which will be sold by Christie's in New York on May 4 is one of the ten versions he soon put back on the market.
It is a grisaille, 130 x 97 cm, dated February 9, 1955. The topic, centered on a figure of dominatrix woman, is executed in the manner of the experimental years of Cubism before the First World War. The cumulated experience of Picasso makes this painting a luminous work that exceeds in this respect many early Cubist paintings of the master.
Picasso's exegetes will try a comparison with the Demoiselles d'Avignon, but it is recommended to keep a cool head and to remember that Ganz did not select the version L. The estimate, $ 20M, is ambitious.
It is likely that Picasso, just after the death of Matisse, wanted to conduct a parallel study of art history and of his personal contributions. Some are in color, others in grisaille (a term also used in its French version in English texts).
Five of them remained in the Ganz collection until the death of the collector. The version O, 114 x 146 cm, which can be considered as the culmination of the group, was sold for $ 32M including premium at Christie's on November 10, 1997.
Ganz had bought all the series to Kahnweiler but the version L which will be sold by Christie's in New York on May 4 is one of the ten versions he soon put back on the market.
It is a grisaille, 130 x 97 cm, dated February 9, 1955. The topic, centered on a figure of dominatrix woman, is executed in the manner of the experimental years of Cubism before the First World War. The cumulated experience of Picasso makes this painting a luminous work that exceeds in this respect many early Cubist paintings of the master.
Picasso's exegetes will try a comparison with the Demoiselles d'Avignon, but it is recommended to keep a cool head and to remember that Ganz did not select the version L. The estimate, $ 20M, is ambitious.
1955 Les Femmes d'Alger version J by Picasso
2005 SOLD for $ 18.6M including premium by Sotheby's
Link to catalogue.
