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Lot Essay
Pictured in an opulent salon, the four daughters of Alexandre Natanson are the subject of Pierre Bonnard’s large painting, Jeunes filles et chiens (Les Demoiselles Natanson ou Les Quatre Jeunes Filles) of 1910. A lawyer and journalist, Natanson was also an influential arts patron in turn-of-the-century Paris. A keen collector of Nabi art, he founded, together with his brothers, Thadée and Alfred, the literary magazine La revue blanche, which often featured the work of Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Félix Vallotton, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec among others.
This group portrait was painted in the Natanson’s opulent Parisian apartment on the Champs-Elysées. Set in either the salon or the petit salon, this work offers a glimpse of the couple’s ‘decidedly old French taste,’ picturing the room ‘decorated in elegant white and gold trimmed boiseries in a richly carved Louis-Seize interior,’ Gloria Groom has described (Edouard Vuillard: Painter – Decorator, Patrons and Projects, 1892-1912, New Haven, 1993, p. 63). The eldest three daughters, Evelyn, who would later become an engraver, Bolette, who likewise went on to be a prominent gallerist and designer, and Georgette, are pictured in opulent, lace trimmed green dresses, while the youngest child, Marcelle, is pictured in white, playing with one of the family’s dogs who is sitting on her lap. The daughters are pictured in an intimate, informal way, seen at ease in a moment of peaceful domesticity captured in perpetuity. Unlike more formal portraiture, none of the girls are looking directly out to meet the viewer’s gaze, but rather, they are involved in their own conversations, focused upon their pets. Bonnard painted a closely related portrait, Jeunes filles au chien (Dauberville, no. 592), which focused on the eldest and youngest daughters alone.
In 1894, Bonnard’s close friend and Nabi colleague Vuillard had created a suite of nine decorative paintings for Alexandre and his wife, Olga, which explored the theme of Jardins publics (Musée d’Orsay, Paris). These pictures included scenes of children under the trees, girls playing, and their nannies chatting, which the Natanson daughters may have inspired. Indeed, Gloria Groom has also suggested that Vuillard painted these panels for the children as much as their parents. Growing up, the Natanson daughters were surrounded by these panels – Alexandre reinstalled them when they moved from their home on the avenue de Bois to their Champs-Elysées mansion in 1908. In many ways the present work further reflects this intersection between the Natanson family and the artists that were so integral to their father’s life, their childhoods intertwined with the painting of the time.
The present work remained in Natanson’s collection until 1929, when he sold his collection in a sale at Hôtel Drouot. It was later acquired by Lita Annenberg Hazen, an American philanthropist who contributed greatly to the field of medical research, as well as supporting a range of cultural institutions in New York including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Metropolitan Opera. The sister of politician and collector, Walter H. Annenberg, Lita Annenberg Hazen acquired an important collection of art, including Jasper Johns’s Small False Start, recently sold in The Paul G. Allen Collection at Christie’s New York. Her collection was sold in 1996, at which time it was acquired by the present owner, in whose collection it has remained for almost three decades.
This group portrait was painted in the Natanson’s opulent Parisian apartment on the Champs-Elysées. Set in either the salon or the petit salon, this work offers a glimpse of the couple’s ‘decidedly old French taste,’ picturing the room ‘decorated in elegant white and gold trimmed boiseries in a richly carved Louis-Seize interior,’ Gloria Groom has described (Edouard Vuillard: Painter – Decorator, Patrons and Projects, 1892-1912, New Haven, 1993, p. 63). The eldest three daughters, Evelyn, who would later become an engraver, Bolette, who likewise went on to be a prominent gallerist and designer, and Georgette, are pictured in opulent, lace trimmed green dresses, while the youngest child, Marcelle, is pictured in white, playing with one of the family’s dogs who is sitting on her lap. The daughters are pictured in an intimate, informal way, seen at ease in a moment of peaceful domesticity captured in perpetuity. Unlike more formal portraiture, none of the girls are looking directly out to meet the viewer’s gaze, but rather, they are involved in their own conversations, focused upon their pets. Bonnard painted a closely related portrait, Jeunes filles au chien (Dauberville, no. 592), which focused on the eldest and youngest daughters alone.
In 1894, Bonnard’s close friend and Nabi colleague Vuillard had created a suite of nine decorative paintings for Alexandre and his wife, Olga, which explored the theme of Jardins publics (Musée d’Orsay, Paris). These pictures included scenes of children under the trees, girls playing, and their nannies chatting, which the Natanson daughters may have inspired. Indeed, Gloria Groom has also suggested that Vuillard painted these panels for the children as much as their parents. Growing up, the Natanson daughters were surrounded by these panels – Alexandre reinstalled them when they moved from their home on the avenue de Bois to their Champs-Elysées mansion in 1908. In many ways the present work further reflects this intersection between the Natanson family and the artists that were so integral to their father’s life, their childhoods intertwined with the painting of the time.
The present work remained in Natanson’s collection until 1929, when he sold his collection in a sale at Hôtel Drouot. It was later acquired by Lita Annenberg Hazen, an American philanthropist who contributed greatly to the field of medical research, as well as supporting a range of cultural institutions in New York including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Metropolitan Opera. The sister of politician and collector, Walter H. Annenberg, Lita Annenberg Hazen acquired an important collection of art, including Jasper Johns’s Small False Start, recently sold in The Paul G. Allen Collection at Christie’s New York. Her collection was sold in 1996, at which time it was acquired by the present owner, in whose collection it has remained for almost three decades.