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Lot Essay
After the Belgian painter Adrien Jean Le Mayeur de Merpr?s (1880-1959) arrived in Bali in 1932 he started to work very hard. He engaged two legong dancers Ni Pollok - who would later be his muse and wife - and Ni Reneng to pose for him. In a relatively brief period of time he created enough works for an exhibition which was organized in Singapore in the YWCA building in 1933. The exhibition was a great success, the critics were unanimous in their praise of Le Mayeur: The Singapore Free Press writes" The paintings of M. Mayeur form one of the best art exhibitions yet arranged in Singapore. Most of them have Bali girls as their subject, and the artist has succeeded in capturing the sunny spirit both of subject and scene. His technique is simple but effective. He indicates every essential without going into detail. His colouring too is brilliantly effective and he has captured the brightness and colourfulness of the tropical scene with the minimum of effort."
Because of this exhibition Le Mayeur struck up friendship with many foreign residents - often buyers of his work - of Singapore. One of them was the father-in-law of the first owner of the present painting. La Pergola (Lot 2115) was painted especially for this son-in-law, Mr. Richardson, who asked Le Mayeur to use his favourite colour, jade-green. The colour was used indeed in the silk sarongs the women are wearing.
Mr Richardson and his wife left Singapore in 1940 for Australia and took the painting with them. In 1981-1983 a Belgian UNO-consultant based in Indonesia, - the present owner - visited Bali and the home of Le Mayeur in Sanur where he then met the widow of Le Mayeur, Ni Pollok. It was at this occasion he got to know and to appreciate the artist and his work, who at that time wasn't so much known in Belgium itself. In 1989 he heard by chance that the wife of Mr Richardson wanted to sell the painting. He brought the painting back from Australia to Brussels where is has been ever since.
La Pergola represents Ni Pollok and Ni Reneng and three other female figures on a terrace surrounded by statues under a pergola in the garden in Sanur. During the more than 25 years Le Mayeur lived on Bali he often used this site as location for a scene he wanted to depict.
In 1994, Christie's Amsterdam (October 19 lot 109A) sold a work by Le Mayeur of women at a loom under the same pergola, with the same statues and the same view on the sea. In a private collection in Jakarta is a painting of Ni Pollok standing on the same terrace under the iron wires of the trellis of the pergola depicted in the present work as well. At this time the branches of the shrubs do not cover the whole pergola yet. On a later work, which is in the museum collection of the Le Mayeur Museum in Sanur, the painter depicted three women at a loom under the same pergola again. At this time, approximately 20 years later, the pergola was fully overgrown.
After the first exhibitions Le Mayeur decided to build himself a paradise. "Now that my exhibitions turned out to be bigger successes than I had ever dared to hope, I organized my home exactly as I liked it. I intended to surround myself with nothing but beauty". In his letters Le Mayeur writes that he created his house and garden to facilitate his work. "I've had a cottage built an the seashore, far away from other people [K] our little house makes up a worthy frame around her [Polloks] beauty". "I planted a mass of Bougainvillea, frangipani, hibiscus. I built little temples, completely made of white coral, dug little ponds and I have approximately two hundred of little sculptures of Gods of Hindu mythology whose silhouettes are drawn on the green waters of the ocean and to the purple and pink skies of the tropics." [Letters to Laure after the war, July 1946] One of these sculptures was used in La Pergola as repoussoir that leads the eye of the beholder towards the centre of attraction: the girls with a yellow parasol.
In the present work the statues are as important props as the yellow parasol. It is well known that Le Mayeur has always used the same image motif in many of his works. In his youth he often depicted dolls, carafes or bottles. Yellow sun-shades appear very early in his oeuvre. Already on paintings he executed in the South of Europe immediately after World War II they can be seen. Also in Bali the artist used the yellow parasol as an important decorative element. He may have been very fond of the parasol not only because of the colour but also of the fact that the circular form adds to a higher decorative value of a painting. Pollok with the sun-umbrella is without doubt the charming central piece of this magnificent, colourful, strong and sophisticated work.
Christie's is grateful to Drs. C.Z. Huizing for this essay contribution.
Because of this exhibition Le Mayeur struck up friendship with many foreign residents - often buyers of his work - of Singapore. One of them was the father-in-law of the first owner of the present painting. La Pergola (Lot 2115) was painted especially for this son-in-law, Mr. Richardson, who asked Le Mayeur to use his favourite colour, jade-green. The colour was used indeed in the silk sarongs the women are wearing.
Mr Richardson and his wife left Singapore in 1940 for Australia and took the painting with them. In 1981-1983 a Belgian UNO-consultant based in Indonesia, - the present owner - visited Bali and the home of Le Mayeur in Sanur where he then met the widow of Le Mayeur, Ni Pollok. It was at this occasion he got to know and to appreciate the artist and his work, who at that time wasn't so much known in Belgium itself. In 1989 he heard by chance that the wife of Mr Richardson wanted to sell the painting. He brought the painting back from Australia to Brussels where is has been ever since.
La Pergola represents Ni Pollok and Ni Reneng and three other female figures on a terrace surrounded by statues under a pergola in the garden in Sanur. During the more than 25 years Le Mayeur lived on Bali he often used this site as location for a scene he wanted to depict.
In 1994, Christie's Amsterdam (October 19 lot 109A) sold a work by Le Mayeur of women at a loom under the same pergola, with the same statues and the same view on the sea. In a private collection in Jakarta is a painting of Ni Pollok standing on the same terrace under the iron wires of the trellis of the pergola depicted in the present work as well. At this time the branches of the shrubs do not cover the whole pergola yet. On a later work, which is in the museum collection of the Le Mayeur Museum in Sanur, the painter depicted three women at a loom under the same pergola again. At this time, approximately 20 years later, the pergola was fully overgrown.
After the first exhibitions Le Mayeur decided to build himself a paradise. "Now that my exhibitions turned out to be bigger successes than I had ever dared to hope, I organized my home exactly as I liked it. I intended to surround myself with nothing but beauty". In his letters Le Mayeur writes that he created his house and garden to facilitate his work. "I've had a cottage built an the seashore, far away from other people [K] our little house makes up a worthy frame around her [Polloks] beauty". "I planted a mass of Bougainvillea, frangipani, hibiscus. I built little temples, completely made of white coral, dug little ponds and I have approximately two hundred of little sculptures of Gods of Hindu mythology whose silhouettes are drawn on the green waters of the ocean and to the purple and pink skies of the tropics." [Letters to Laure after the war, July 1946] One of these sculptures was used in La Pergola as repoussoir that leads the eye of the beholder towards the centre of attraction: the girls with a yellow parasol.
In the present work the statues are as important props as the yellow parasol. It is well known that Le Mayeur has always used the same image motif in many of his works. In his youth he often depicted dolls, carafes or bottles. Yellow sun-shades appear very early in his oeuvre. Already on paintings he executed in the South of Europe immediately after World War II they can be seen. Also in Bali the artist used the yellow parasol as an important decorative element. He may have been very fond of the parasol not only because of the colour but also of the fact that the circular form adds to a higher decorative value of a painting. Pollok with the sun-umbrella is without doubt the charming central piece of this magnificent, colourful, strong and sophisticated work.
Christie's is grateful to Drs. C.Z. Huizing for this essay contribution.