Probablement collection Clément Massier (1844-1917), Golfe-Juan

Galerie Maurice Turpin (1928-2005), Londres, 1990 

Vente Vienne, Im Kinsky, 19 octobre 2016, lot 958 

Galerie de Bayser, Paris 

Acquis auprès de cette dernière par l'actuel propriétaire le 15 novembre 2017

Collection Louis Grandchamp des Raux

Londres, Maurice Turpin Antiques, Works on paper, novembre-décembre 1990

Paris, Galerie de Bayser, Fine Arts Paris, novembre, 2017, n° 29, reproduit

L’Estampille l’Objet d’art, novembre 2017, reproduit p. 76

The symbolist painter Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer was only twenty-five when he created this pastel. This touching early work was done before his activity as a portraitist gravitated towards a production that became more commercial and prolific at the end of the 1890’s. A virtuoso of pastels, Lévy-Dhurmer forcefully exploits the possibilities of this medium to translate fleeting impressions and changing light.

A golden background isolates the model in an idealised, luminous space, almost sacred, giving the portrait a timelessness that adds to the work’s poetic force. This gold background and the child’s pose recall Lévy-Dhurmer’s interest in the art of the Italian Renaissance and this strict profile immediately brings to mind the portraits of Pisanello or Piero della Francesca. The textured aspect of the gilded background also evokes another realm dear to the artist: that of ceramics. Its surface recalls the delicate cracking of enamel following firing, or the ceramic tesserae found in mosaics – a detail that led us to formulate a new hypothesis regarding the identity of the model. In 1890, the year this pastel was created, Lévy-Dhurmer was working alongside Clément Massier (1844 -1917) at his famous ceramics workshop in Golfe-Juan, near Vallauris. Having been part of Massier’s workshop since 1887, Lévy-Dhurmer became its artistic director five years later. Together, they produced experimental pieces, including vases inspired by Islamic and Hispano-Moorish ceramics. We believe that the figure depicted is Clément Massier’s daughter, Anne Caroline Jeanne, born on 20 August 1881, here aged nine.

Another pastel of a similar format and technique, also signed and dated 1890, forms an interesting pendant with the present work: it represents a young girl against a gold background very close to the one in our pastel (1). Although it was described as an anonymous portrait when it last appeared in a sale in 2015, it is likely to be Marie Elisabeth Delphine Louise, the beloved daughter of Clément Massier, who was thirteen years old in 1890 and appears here as having celebrated her First Holy Communion. The pairing of these two works makes the context of their creation all the more fascinating and turns our pastel into an intimate piece, reflecting the deep friendship between the two men.

1. Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer, Portrait de jeune femme en buste de profil gauche, 1890, pastel and gold, signed and dated upper right: « Lucien Lévy 90 », 38 x 30 cm, whereabouts currently unknown (sale Paris, Tajan, 13 May 2015, lot n° 147; previously in the Clément Massier collection, label on the reverse n° 350)