La petite fille aux hortensias

Jacques-Émile Blanche was born in Paris and raised in the fashionable suburb of Passy. He was the son of the celebrated psychiatrist Émile-Antoine Blanche who treated the elite of Paris, and from an early age Blanche was exposed to the literary and artistic luminaries of late 19th century Paris. He spent his youth in a house that once belonged to the Princesse de Lamballe and was brought up in an atmosphere of culture and refinement which is reflected by his connections to famous artists, musicians, writers and socialites who he associated with and worked alongside throughout his life. Much in demand as a portraitist, Blanche painted Edgar Degas, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, Claude Debussy, Maurice Maeterlinck, Paul Claudel, and Colette among others during his time in Paris. He traveled to England regularly from a young age and the artist’s English sitters are no less distinguished, among them James Joyce, Henry James, Aubrey Beardsley, Thomas Hardy and D. H. Lawrence.

During the last quarter of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th, painting and the decorative arts adapted to the elegance and sophistication of the lives that were led by the wealthy. Much of the wealth derived from the expansion of industry in Europe at a time of great economic growth, and even more came from the ever-increasing spending power of rich patrons of art from North America who themselves wanted to take back across the Atlantic a taste of the splendor that was Europe. Of all the genres of art, the one which is the most reflective of this golden age is that of portraiture. The great artistic luminaries of this age were all portrait painters; in addition to Blanche, John Singer Sargent, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Giovanni Boldini, Joaquín Sorolla and Anders Zorn were all renowned as portraitists.

An inscription on a label on the reverse of the present work suggests that the petite fille in this painting is ‘Mlle Solvay’ – a member of the family of Dr. Ernest Solvay, the Belgian chemist and co-founder of Solvay et Cie., the chemical processing company. The sitter is perhaps Thérèse Solvay, the daughter of Alfred Solvay, Ernest’s brother and fellow co-founder, who would have been approaching her 8^th birthday in the summer of 1887 when the present work was painted and the hydrangeas would have been in bloom. The Solvay family was known to vacation in Varengeville-sur-mer in Normandy, where Blanche’s inscription indicates the work was painted. Then, as now, Varengeville was famed for its extraordinary blue hydrangeas (hortensias in French), and they provided a fitting backdrop for the young girl in her matching blue dress. Blanche's family had a vacation home in Dieppe just up the coast from Varengeville, and he had been regularly visiting Normandy from a young age and was personally deeply attached to the region.

Though hydrangeas carried multiple associations in the fin de siècle world, including suggestions of vanity and arrogance (they were commonly sent to women by suitors they had rejected) and decadence and homosexuality because of the adoption of the blue hydrangea in particular by Blanche’s friend Comte Robert de Montesquiou as his personal motif, none of these are reflected in Blanche’s charming painting. Instead, they here evoke a sense of place and work to set off the extraordinary blonde hair of the girl. With the notable exception of her hair, La petite fille aux hortensias is otherwise a symphony of greens and blues, captured in Blanche’s characteristically fluid brushstroke. It is an evocation not only of the ephemeral beauty of the flowers at the height of summer, but also the innocence, and perhaps the fleeting nature, of childhood itself.

Jane Roberts has authenticated this painting, which is included in her digital Jacques-Émile Blanche catalogue raisonné as no. 173.