Atelier de l’artiste

Collection Noële Boulet, sa fille, Clermont-de-l’Oise

Collection Jean-François Denis, son fils, Alençon

Samuel Josefowitz, Lausanne (acquis auprès de ce dernier le 19 juin 1984), puis par descendance

Vente Paris, Christie’s, Collection Sam Josefowitz, 20 octobre 2023, lot 108 

Acquis lors de cette vente par l'actuel propriétaire

Collection Louis Grandchamp des Raux

Paris, Galerie Le Barc de Boutteville, Un groupe de peintres, octobre-novembre 1893, n°1

Toulouse, Hôtel de La Dépêche, Exposition de la Dépêche de Toulouse, mai-juin 1894, n°10

Paris, Galeries de La Plume, Treizième exposition du Salon des Cent, juillet-août 1895, n°70

Paris, Pavillon de Marsan, Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs, Exposition Maurice Denis 1888-1924, avril-mai 1924, n°37 p.3

Paris, Palais des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Salon d'Automne, octobre-novembre 1944, n°420 p.23

Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne, Exposition Maurice Denis (1870-1943), juin 1945, n°22, reproduit p.24

Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Art Sacré, Œuvres françaises des XIXe et XXe siècles, novembre 1950 - janvier 1951, n°11 p.15

Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Bonnard, Vuillard et les Nabis, 1888-1903, juin-octobre 1955, n°92 p.54

Paris, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Maurice Denis, avril-mai 1963, n°50

Albi, Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Maurice Denis, juin-septembre 1963, n°28 p.25

Paris, Orangerie des Tuileries, Maurice Denis, juin-août 1970, n°56 p.35

Brême, Kunsthalle, Zurich, Kunsthaus, Copenhague, Statens Museum for Kunst, Maurice Denis, Gemälde, Handzeichnungen, Druckgraphik, Meisterwerke des Nachimpressionismus aus der Sammlung Maurice Denis, octobre 1971 - mai 1972, n°35 p.40

Honfleur, Salles d'Exposition du Grenier à Sel, Maurice Denis, juillet-août 1975, n°20, reproduit

Pont-Aven, Musée de l’Hôtel de Ville, Maurice Denis, juin-septembre 1979, n°18 p.36, reproduit p.4

Tokyo, Musée National d’Art Occidental, Kyoto, Musée National d’Art Moderne de Kyoto, Maurice Denis, septembre-décembre 1981, n°24 pl.24

Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Maurice Denis 1870-1943, septembre 1994 - septembre 1995, n°62, reproduit p.190

Lausanne, Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, De Vallotton à Dubuffet, Une collection en mouvement, Acquisitions, dons, prêts, décembre 1996 - février 1997 (hors catalogue)

Pont-Aven, Musée de Pont-Aven, Maurice Denis et la Bretagne, La Leçon de Pont-Aven, juin-octobre 2009, p. 86 et 144, n°PA-23 p. 93

Lausanne, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Maurice Denis, Amour, 1888-1914, février-mai 2021, n°31, reproduit p.114-115

S. Barazzetti-Demoulin, Maurice Denis, 25 novembre 1870 - 13 novembre 1943, Paris, Grasset, 1945, p.222 et 279, reproduit (entre p.232 et p.233)

M. Denis, Journal, 1884-1904, vol. I, La Colombe, Paris, 1957, n°5, p.103

J.-P. Bouillon, Maurice Denis, Le spirituel dans l’art, Gallimard, RMN, Paris, 2006, reproduit p.31

J.-J. Lévêque, Maurice Denis 1870-1943, Le peintre de l’âme, ACR Edition, Paris, 2006, reproduit p.11

Cette œuvre sera incluse au catalogue raisonné des œuvres de Maurice Denis actuellement en préparation par Mesdames Claire Denis et Fabienne Stahl, sous le numéro n°893.0017.

Une attestation d'inclusion numérique de Mesdames Claire Denis et Fabienne Stahl sera remise à l'acquéreur.

At the beginning of the 1890’s, Maurice Denis met Marthe Meurier, a year younger than him with whom he fell deeply in love. After a long engagement, the artist married his beloved on 12 June 1893 in the church of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.The couple spent their honeymoon in Perros-Guirec, in northern Brittany, where the artist used to go on family holidays in his youth. This trip allowed him to share his childhood memories with his wife, as if on a journey of initiation.

Together, they settled into the modest Penven house, route de Landerval, where the Denis family had once stayed. It is this house that serves as the backdrop for our painting depicting Marthe setting a plate. The work conveys the painter’s deep admiration for the woman who: “goes out of her way to take care of our household. She is perfect”. Twenty years after Marthe’s death, Maurice Denis recalled the joy of that forty-day stay: “I arrived in Perros on 14 June, Marthe and I, on 13 June 1893, the day after our wedding, began there the happy stay whose memory no vicissitude has been able to, nor will ever be able to, tarnish. Then, just as today, the privets were full of fragrance; that beach was ours alone, no houses, just solitude: the first mornings of my life, like the first mornings of the world…”.

In this painting, Marthe is cleaning and preparing plates of food, which are then brought by a maid to the guests seated in the dining room. The position of the young bride, the pattern of the floor tiles and the dimly lit room illuminated by a window in the background are reminiscent of the work of the Flemish portrait painters that Maurice Denis had discovered in Brussels and Ghent the previous year (ill. 1).

He had travelled there to escape his parents, who, opposed to his plan to marry Marthe, had also forbidden him from attending the wedding of Éva, Marthe’s sister, to the painter Philippe Parrot-Lecomte. His Nordic inspirations are combined here with elements that are purely Breton, such as the design of the furniture and the maid’s dress. The vertical lines of the dresser, the door, the window, the collar of the dress and the tiled floor are counterbalanced by numerous curved lines, which form the sleeve of Marthe’s dress, her face, the plates and even the maid’s Breton headdress.

Several preparatory works for the young woman’s face are known, notably a pencil drawing and a Portrait de Marthe de Profil. The composition is structured in three distinct planes: Martha in a half-length pose in front of the dresser, then a maid wearing the Trégor headdress, and finally, three seated figures evocative of Jesus at the home of Martha and Mary from the Gospel according to Saint Luke (ill. 2). This episode, dear to the artist, who illustrated it on several occasions, serves to evoke the divine presence in everyday life (ill. 3). The association of this biblical scene with the portrayal of his wife beneath the scroll bearing the words ’Sancta Martha’ lends this portrait a particular symbolism, intertwining the act of giving thanks with a declaration of love.

Furthermore, Marthe is holding a plate with two fish, alluding to the multiplication of the five loaves of bread and the two fish in the Gospel according to Saint Mark, which corresponds to the religious subject depicted in the background.

The painter himself usually referred to this work as Marthe au Vaisselier, but the title used for exhibitions during his lifetime was indeed Sancta Martha. In this painting, Maurice Denis genuinely seeks to ’sanctify’ Marthe, who was at once a devoted wife, an accomplished mistress of the house, a muse and soon to be the mother of his children. Until her untimely death in 1919, she remained the central figure in the painter’s life, the pillar of his happiness. This joy was, however, affected by the death of their first child Jean-Paul, from complications of influenza in February 1895, and by that of Éva, Marthe’s sister, in 1901. These two tragedies would fuel the depression that gradually took hold of the young woman, whose final years were marked by suffering and illness, a far cry from the boundless happiness she had felt at the time of her marriage, when this painting was created.

Fig. 1 : Hans Memling, Portrait de Barbara van Vlaendenbergh, circa 1480, huile sur panneau, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles

Fig. 2 : Diego Velazquez, Christ dans la maison de Marthe et Marie, 1618, huile sur toile

Fig. 3 : Maurice Denis, La Cuisinière, 1893, huile sur toile

Fig. 4 : Johannes Vermeer, La Laitière, vers 1660, huile sur toile, Coll. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam