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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming Van Dongen Digital Catalogue Raisonné, currently being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.
'I love anything that glitters, precious stones that sparkle, fabrics that shimmer, beautiful women who arouse carnal desire... painting lets me possess all this most fully' (Van Dongen, quoted in M. Giry, Fauvism, Fribourg, 1981, pp. 224-6).
Perhaps no artist captured the crazed and heady atmosphere of the années folles in the 1920s as perfectly as Kees van Dongen. Painted in 1920, Luisa encapsulates the character of this era in the Dutch-born artist’s oeuvre when he had made the society hotspots of France his home and indeed his inspiration. Defending himself before Vlaminck, van Dongen once said: 'I very much like being, as they say, a painter of elegance and fashion! But I am not, as many wish to believe, a victim of snobbism, of luxury, of the world. It amuses me, that’s all’ (Van Dongen, quoted in G. Diehl, Van Dongen, trans. S. Winston, New York, 1968, p. 8).
First through his friend and muse the Marchesa Casati, and subsequently his partner Léo Jasmy or 'Jasmy La Dogaresse', with whom he moved into a grand apartment at 29, rue de la Villa Saïd, in the elegant 8th arrondissement, Van Dongen was introduced to the glorious panoply of the world of the wealthy, the glamorous and the beautiful, and this is perfectly conveyed in his paintings. It was at the Villa Saïd where he painted, displayed his work and lavishly entertained. The Marchesa Casati, a legendary hostess famed for her extravagant parties, was a particular source of inspiration, and both her features, or look, and those of Jasmy often linger around the faces of his unnamed models, a tribute to their importance in his life.
'All women have their beauty, their charm that I exalt', Van Dongen said in 1921, capturing the essence of the era which he so perfectly expressed in his paintings. Dominated by aristocrats and newly wealthy entrepreneurs, the chic circles in Parisian society made Van Dongen their favorite portraitist, Chaumeil called him 'peintre et roi de son temps' (L. Chaumeil, Van Dongen, Geneva, 1967, p. 216).
'I love anything that glitters, precious stones that sparkle, fabrics that shimmer, beautiful women who arouse carnal desire... painting lets me possess all this most fully' (Van Dongen, quoted in M. Giry, Fauvism, Fribourg, 1981, pp. 224-6).
Perhaps no artist captured the crazed and heady atmosphere of the années folles in the 1920s as perfectly as Kees van Dongen. Painted in 1920, Luisa encapsulates the character of this era in the Dutch-born artist’s oeuvre when he had made the society hotspots of France his home and indeed his inspiration. Defending himself before Vlaminck, van Dongen once said: 'I very much like being, as they say, a painter of elegance and fashion! But I am not, as many wish to believe, a victim of snobbism, of luxury, of the world. It amuses me, that’s all’ (Van Dongen, quoted in G. Diehl, Van Dongen, trans. S. Winston, New York, 1968, p. 8).
First through his friend and muse the Marchesa Casati, and subsequently his partner Léo Jasmy or 'Jasmy La Dogaresse', with whom he moved into a grand apartment at 29, rue de la Villa Saïd, in the elegant 8th arrondissement, Van Dongen was introduced to the glorious panoply of the world of the wealthy, the glamorous and the beautiful, and this is perfectly conveyed in his paintings. It was at the Villa Saïd where he painted, displayed his work and lavishly entertained. The Marchesa Casati, a legendary hostess famed for her extravagant parties, was a particular source of inspiration, and both her features, or look, and those of Jasmy often linger around the faces of his unnamed models, a tribute to their importance in his life.
'All women have their beauty, their charm that I exalt', Van Dongen said in 1921, capturing the essence of the era which he so perfectly expressed in his paintings. Dominated by aristocrats and newly wealthy entrepreneurs, the chic circles in Parisian society made Van Dongen their favorite portraitist, Chaumeil called him 'peintre et roi de son temps' (L. Chaumeil, Van Dongen, Geneva, 1967, p. 216).