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Lot Essay
Florence Valdès-Forain intends to include this work in her forthcoming Forain catalogue raisonné.
‘I neither distort nor invent, I refract and for the good of everyone, I denounce. I am not a caricaturist, I am a painter of reality…’ (Forain, quoted in ‘A Portrait of Jean-Louis Forain, by his great granddaughter Florence Valdès-Forain,’ in Jean-Louis Forain: The Impressionist Years, exh. cat., Memphis, 1995, p. 23).
Like his close friend Edgar Degas, Jean-Louis Forain often found inspiration in the world of entertainment, which he believed offered the best place to observe the prevailing social mores of the day. Of particular interest was the Parisian nightlife which allowed Forain to reveal his ability to capture qualities of different societal types. With its cafés and theatres, Paris offered endless sources of inspiration for his most-celebrated works, which he masterly executed not only on canvas, but also on paper, like the present watercolour. Au foyer du théâtre, depicting an elegantly dressed young girl in a foyer, teeming with members of the Parisian wealthy society, perfectly conveys the sparkling atmosphere of the Belle Époque.
‘I neither distort nor invent, I refract and for the good of everyone, I denounce. I am not a caricaturist, I am a painter of reality…’ (Forain, quoted in ‘A Portrait of Jean-Louis Forain, by his great granddaughter Florence Valdès-Forain,’ in Jean-Louis Forain: The Impressionist Years, exh. cat., Memphis, 1995, p. 23).
Like his close friend Edgar Degas, Jean-Louis Forain often found inspiration in the world of entertainment, which he believed offered the best place to observe the prevailing social mores of the day. Of particular interest was the Parisian nightlife which allowed Forain to reveal his ability to capture qualities of different societal types. With its cafés and theatres, Paris offered endless sources of inspiration for his most-celebrated works, which he masterly executed not only on canvas, but also on paper, like the present watercolour. Au foyer du théâtre, depicting an elegantly dressed young girl in a foyer, teeming with members of the Parisian wealthy society, perfectly conveys the sparkling atmosphere of the Belle Époque.