.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Sold with a photo-certificate from the Wildenstein Institute, dated Paris, le 28 septembre 2001, stating that the present work will be included in their forthcoming Kees van Dongen catalogue raisonné.
Between December 1905 and February 1907 Kees Van Dongen lived with his family in the famed 'Bateau-Lavoir' at 13 rue Ravignan, Paris. This ramshackle collection of wooden studios in Montmartre housed the most avant-garde group artists of the time such as Picasso who lived there with his mistress Fernande Olivier, and with whom the Van Dongens became very close friends.
L'Ecuyère like Van Dongen's other celebrated works dated from the beginning of the twentieth century, was most likely inspired by the Cirque Médrano, a circus located nearby for which Picasso and he were great enthusiasts, regularly visiting it together. This travelling circus, originally established under the name Cirque Fernando, would usually settle at the top of the rue des Martyrs. Until 1897, it belonged to the bareback rider Ferdinand Beert, alias Fernando, and the Clown Médrano. It was then taken over by the latter and his family who then ran it until 1943. Like the Cirque de Montmartre, Médrano closed in 1963. "The two painters were fascinated by the magic of the circus. Van Dongen always had his sketch book with him and would stare at the traits of the acrobats, the clowns, the equilibrists, the circus riders on their horses, in fact at all this hallucinating world, that he would then reproduce the following day on his canvases, in his studio" (J.C. Kyriazi, Van Dongen et le Fauvisme, Lausanne, 1971, p. 84).
The scene presented in L'Ecuyère, a circus horse performing its act, bears a strikingly direct and pleasing relationship to the works with which Van Dongen made his debut, such as La Chimère Pie and his early self portrait dated from 1895. Possibly it was on his trip to Holland when he saw his early works again that Van Dongen perceived his way forward in a semi-realistic variation of Modern Primitivism.
During the period at which L'Ecuyere was painted Van Dongen's work was indeed described as being 'très sauvage' and 'primitif'.
It is also during these early years that Van Dongen became associated with the Fauves and painted numerous works inspired by the circus theme for which the Fauvist movement became known. By 1904, he had already exponents of Fauvism at the time, and although it is not certain whether Van Dongen was one of its founders "Van Dongen was the one Fauve who of all the group best deserves the name, for he remained a Fauve all his life" (quoted in: Exh. cat., Van Dongen, Arizona, 1971, p.12).
Between December 1905 and February 1907 Kees Van Dongen lived with his family in the famed 'Bateau-Lavoir' at 13 rue Ravignan, Paris. This ramshackle collection of wooden studios in Montmartre housed the most avant-garde group artists of the time such as Picasso who lived there with his mistress Fernande Olivier, and with whom the Van Dongens became very close friends.
L'Ecuyère like Van Dongen's other celebrated works dated from the beginning of the twentieth century, was most likely inspired by the Cirque Médrano, a circus located nearby for which Picasso and he were great enthusiasts, regularly visiting it together. This travelling circus, originally established under the name Cirque Fernando, would usually settle at the top of the rue des Martyrs. Until 1897, it belonged to the bareback rider Ferdinand Beert, alias Fernando, and the Clown Médrano. It was then taken over by the latter and his family who then ran it until 1943. Like the Cirque de Montmartre, Médrano closed in 1963. "The two painters were fascinated by the magic of the circus. Van Dongen always had his sketch book with him and would stare at the traits of the acrobats, the clowns, the equilibrists, the circus riders on their horses, in fact at all this hallucinating world, that he would then reproduce the following day on his canvases, in his studio" (J.C. Kyriazi, Van Dongen et le Fauvisme, Lausanne, 1971, p. 84).
The scene presented in L'Ecuyère, a circus horse performing its act, bears a strikingly direct and pleasing relationship to the works with which Van Dongen made his debut, such as La Chimère Pie and his early self portrait dated from 1895. Possibly it was on his trip to Holland when he saw his early works again that Van Dongen perceived his way forward in a semi-realistic variation of Modern Primitivism.
During the period at which L'Ecuyere was painted Van Dongen's work was indeed described as being 'très sauvage' and 'primitif'.
It is also during these early years that Van Dongen became associated with the Fauves and painted numerous works inspired by the circus theme for which the Fauvist movement became known. By 1904, he had already exponents of Fauvism at the time, and although it is not certain whether Van Dongen was one of its founders "Van Dongen was the one Fauve who of all the group best deserves the name, for he remained a Fauve all his life" (quoted in: Exh. cat., Van Dongen, Arizona, 1971, p.12).