Atelier de l’artiste

Collection de France Ranson (1866-1952), veuve de l'artiste, France (par succession)

Collection particulière, France (par descendance)

Collection Samuel Josefowitz (1921-2015), Pully (probablement acquis dans les années 1960)

Collection de sa fille Nina Myran-Josefowitz (en 1999)

Vente Paris, Christie’s, Collection Sam Josefowitz, 20 octobre 2023, lot 105

Acquis lors de cette vente par l'actuel propriétaire

Collection Louis Grandchamp des Raux

Paris, Pavillon de la Ville de Paris, Société des Artistes Indépendants, 8ème exposition, mars-avril 1892, n°972, p.59

Minneapolis, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Nabis and their Circle, novembre-décembre 1962, p.144

Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Musée Départemental Maurice Denis « Le Prieuré », Paul Élie Ranson, Du Symbolisme à l’Art Nouveau, octobre 1997-janvier 1998, n°14, reproduit en couleur p.63

Toronto, dépôt à The Art Gallery of Ontario, septembre 1990-juillet 2003

Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Musée Maurice Denis, Pont-Aven, Musée de Pont-Aven, Paul Ranson, Fantasmes & Sortilèges, octobre 2009-janvier 2010, n°54, reproduit en couleur p.92

Barcelone, Fundacio Catalunya La Pedrera, Les Nabis de Bonnard à Vuillard, mars-juin 2026, p.237, reproduit en couleur p.192

Varsovie, Royal Łazienki Museum, The Nabis – Prophets of a New Art, juillet-septembre 2026

C. Boyle-Turner, Les Nabis, Édita SA, Lausanne, 1993, p.34, reproduit en couleur p.35 (titré Suzanne et les Anciens)

B. Ranson Bitker, G. Genty, Paul Ranson 1861-1909, Catalogue raisonné, Japonisme, Symbolisme, Art Nouveau, Somogy, Éditions d’Art, Paris, 1999, n°54, reproduit en couleur p.104

Paul Ranson 1861-1909, catalogue d'exposition, Musée de Valence, juin-octobre 2004, Somogy Editions d'Art, Paris, n°35, reproduit p.42

In March of 1892, Paul-Élie Ranson exhibited eight majorworks at the VIII Exposition des

Artistes Indépendants. Next to L’Initiation à la Musique (1889) and Le Nabi (1890) hung

canvases executed in 1891: our painting, presented with the title Schouchana (January), Kentron or L’Aiguillon de la Chair (April), Lustral (May) (ill. 3), La Sibylle or L’Egyptienne (June), Rochers en Eskual Heria (November).

That year, the themes explored by Ranson were, in turn, voyeurism (Schouchana), sensuality (Chambre Bleue (ill. 4) and Lustral), fantasy and eroticism (Kentron or

L’Aiguillon de la Chair), purification (Baigneuse and Lustral), and the questioning of existence and esotericism (Horoscope and Sibylle).

The year 1891 was a period of intense activity for Ranson, who continued his exploration of simplified forms. Schouchana is the first painting in this series, dated January on the reverse. The works produced that year form a certain unity around the theme of the female body, depicted in a skilful blend of eroticism and restraint.

These works are characterized by a confident, pared-down style, blocks of bright colour, a palette dominated by blue and green for the backgrounds, and an orange hue for the nude female figures.

Throughout 1891, Ranson continued to use the model he had developed for Schouchana – that of a woman with black hair and orange-toned skin rendered in flat colours, whose contours are outlined in black.

In the booklet accompanying the 1892 exhibition, the painting istitled “Schouchana”, a word in Hebrew (just like the word ‘nabi’) that can be seen engraved on the pediment of the fountain to the right of the composition. It is the only religious painting exhibited

on that occasion and one of the earliest examples of traditional iconography in Ranson’s work.

The episode, recounted in the Book of Daniel (Chapter XIII), tells the story of the chaste Susanna, coveted by two old men who, unbeknownst to her, are watching her bathing in her garden in Babylon. Angry with Susanna for having rejected their advances, they falsely accuse her of adultery and she is sentenced to death. It is the young prophet Daniel who saves her by restoring the truth and proving her innocence.

The subject of Susanna and the Elders, a theme frequently found in Western painting since the Renaissance, here becomes a blend of classical references and Ranson’s own aesthetic explorations, influenced by Japonism and the art of Gauguin. The figure of Schouchana as an ideal, does not differ greatly from that of the Venus of antiquity and even evokes the figure in Ingres’s La Source (Paris, Musée d’Orsay) (ill. 1); it is also worth noting how much Ranson owes to Tintoretto’s Susanna au Bain (Paris, Musée du Louvre) (ill. 2). The composition centres on the nude figure of Susanna, who is about to step into her bath, holding up her long hair. The young woman moves within a garden, sheltered by a trellis that defines the pace. This enclosure constitutes a physical and a symbolic barrier, keeping the elderly voyeurs at a distance and emphasising the

opposition of desire and chastity.

Ranson treats his composition with flat areas of bright colour; the orange figure of Suzanne is outlined in black, with the contours of her body lightly traced, as if to suggest

a veil of modesty. The orange hue of her skin echoes that of the faces of the two men, a warm tone contrasting with the cooler one of the background.

This bold new style, with its clean, minimalist lines, should be seen in the context of Ranson’s interest in the vogue of Japonism. During the exhibition of Japanese prints organised by the École des Beaux- Arts in Paris in the summer of 1890, he discovered the arabesque and flat-colour compositions of Hokusai or that of Utamaro in the review Le Japon Artistique (1888–1891).

This aesthetic pursuit earned him the title of “Nabi plus japonard que le Nabi japonard”¹ (the Nabi more Japanese than the Japanese Nabi) the “Nabi très Japonard” being the

nickname given by Félix Fénéon to the other Nabi, Pierre Bonnard.

The plant with large leaves, depicted beside Suzanna, might evoke a philodendron or a Japanese aralia observed in the greenhouses of the Jardin des Plantes or at the 1889 Exposition Universelle. Other than Japonism, the influence of Gauguin on Ranson can be seen in the fracturing of space into different planes of colour, as in Gauguin’s

Vision Après le Sermon (1888). Ranson applies these ideas inherent to Synthetism in the way he simplifies his subjects, flattens forms and reduces his colour palette to a bold combination.

The painter’s aesthetic quest for greater purity and synthesis led him to create a “very special art form, as objective as it is decorative”², which finds its full expression in Schouchana.

1. Ce surnom est donné par ses amis, le Nabi japonard étant Pierre Bonnard.

2. Thiébaut-Sisson, préface du catalogue la vente après-décès de Paul-Élie Ranson, 7 juin 1909, p. 4.

Fig. 1 : Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, La Source, 1856, huile sur toile, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Fig. 2 : Le Tintoret, Suzanne au bain, 1550, huile sur toile, Musée du Louvre, Paris

Fig. 3 : Paul-Élie Ranson, Lustral, 1891, Tempera sur toile, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Fig. 4 : Paul-Élie Ranson, La Chambre bleue, 1900, huile sur toile