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Lot Essay
Maria de la Ville Fromoit and Christine Lenoir have confirmed the authenticity of this painting.
When Lebasque moved to Paris in 1885, he often visited the atelier of Léon Bonnat; a painter, collector, and professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Influenced by Bonnat as well as his fellow students Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard, Lebasque adopted the intimiste style, of which the present large-scale work is an important example.
Henri Lebasque first visited the French Rivieria in 1906 at the suggestion of his friend Henri Manguin. In 1924, Lebasque relocated to the region to permanently take advantage of its unparalleled light. Returning often in the intervening years, the artist would earn the sobriquet "Painter of Joy and Light."
Settling in Le Cannet, a town just to the north of Cannes, Lebasque continued painting landscapes and domestic scenes, but increasingly focused on the depictions of female nudes. Influenced by his friend and neighbour Henri Matisse, with whom Lebasque had founded the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1903, he developed a penchant for the depiction of lavish patterning in interior spaces.
Suffused with warm, natural light, Lebasque's Femme nue assise recalls Matisse's depiction of voluptuous nudes in exotic settings. The bold patterning of the oriental carpet and the elaborate upholstery on which the figure sits is suggested through the artist's use of airy brushwork and further recalls the interior scenes Matisse painted in the South of France. The bright red of the foreground is a nod to the wild use of colour favoured by Matisse and his fellow fauve painters.
Lisa A. Banner has written that Lebasque's 1920s nudes were "the culmination of [his] intimist manner of painting--the celebration of the female form as fertile, warm, and inspiring... Matisse's nudes of the same period, painted in his neighboring villa on the Riviera, share his rich decorative sense, but approach the nude in a more intellectual style, as opposed to Lebasque's sensuous style. Lebasque painted his young models in poses of penetrating intimacy and subtle clarity" (Lisa A. Banner, exh.cat., Lebasque, San Francisco, Montgomery Gallery, 1986, p. 50).
When Lebasque moved to Paris in 1885, he often visited the atelier of Léon Bonnat; a painter, collector, and professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Influenced by Bonnat as well as his fellow students Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard, Lebasque adopted the intimiste style, of which the present large-scale work is an important example.
Henri Lebasque first visited the French Rivieria in 1906 at the suggestion of his friend Henri Manguin. In 1924, Lebasque relocated to the region to permanently take advantage of its unparalleled light. Returning often in the intervening years, the artist would earn the sobriquet "Painter of Joy and Light."
Settling in Le Cannet, a town just to the north of Cannes, Lebasque continued painting landscapes and domestic scenes, but increasingly focused on the depictions of female nudes. Influenced by his friend and neighbour Henri Matisse, with whom Lebasque had founded the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1903, he developed a penchant for the depiction of lavish patterning in interior spaces.
Suffused with warm, natural light, Lebasque's Femme nue assise recalls Matisse's depiction of voluptuous nudes in exotic settings. The bold patterning of the oriental carpet and the elaborate upholstery on which the figure sits is suggested through the artist's use of airy brushwork and further recalls the interior scenes Matisse painted in the South of France. The bright red of the foreground is a nod to the wild use of colour favoured by Matisse and his fellow fauve painters.
Lisa A. Banner has written that Lebasque's 1920s nudes were "the culmination of [his] intimist manner of painting--the celebration of the female form as fertile, warm, and inspiring... Matisse's nudes of the same period, painted in his neighboring villa on the Riviera, share his rich decorative sense, but approach the nude in a more intellectual style, as opposed to Lebasque's sensuous style. Lebasque painted his young models in poses of penetrating intimacy and subtle clarity" (Lisa A. Banner, exh.cat., Lebasque, San Francisco, Montgomery Gallery, 1986, p. 50).