.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Christine Lenoir and Maria de la Ville Fromoit have confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Nu allongé à la tenture is among Lebasque's iconic portrayals of the female nude, highlighting the artist's fascination with and delight in arranging his model amongst luxuriant fabrics, texture and color. In the present painting, "Lebasque displays this model at ease in the sunny interiors of his house at Le Cannet, in various close and revealed poses, full of gentle curves in movement and strokes of color [the artist] invites the viewer into this intimate and private world, laden with the power of suggestion and seduction... These women softened and full as the bodies of Renoir's nudes, have a substance and naturalism which make them immediately pleasing. They are presented in a manner to suggest the artist's ease with his model and her naturalness with him" (L. Banner and P. Fairbanks, Henri Lebasque, exh. cat., Montgomery Gallery, San Francisco, 1986, p. 74).
The present nude turns her face away from the viewer in a romantic gesture of modesty, giving her a slightly mysterious aspect. "By painting her in a haze of light, leaving her face hidden, he has conveyed the individuality of the body and his delight in forms and colors, rather than a slavish portrayal of a beautiful woman. She is an accessible figure, presented in a form which presents her as she is, and not as an abstracted ideal of woman" (ibid., p. 76).
Nu allongé à la tenture is among Lebasque's iconic portrayals of the female nude, highlighting the artist's fascination with and delight in arranging his model amongst luxuriant fabrics, texture and color. In the present painting, "Lebasque displays this model at ease in the sunny interiors of his house at Le Cannet, in various close and revealed poses, full of gentle curves in movement and strokes of color [the artist] invites the viewer into this intimate and private world, laden with the power of suggestion and seduction... These women softened and full as the bodies of Renoir's nudes, have a substance and naturalism which make them immediately pleasing. They are presented in a manner to suggest the artist's ease with his model and her naturalness with him" (L. Banner and P. Fairbanks, Henri Lebasque, exh. cat., Montgomery Gallery, San Francisco, 1986, p. 74).
The present nude turns her face away from the viewer in a romantic gesture of modesty, giving her a slightly mysterious aspect. "By painting her in a haze of light, leaving her face hidden, he has conveyed the individuality of the body and his delight in forms and colors, rather than a slavish portrayal of a beautiful woman. She is an accessible figure, presented in a form which presents her as she is, and not as an abstracted ideal of woman" (ibid., p. 76).