Vente Paris, Hôtel Drouot, Me Lair-Dubreuil, Collection V., 27 mai 1926, lot 110

Collection particulière, Paris 

Galerie Ivo Bouwman, Pays-Bas, 1998 

Galerie Jean-François Heim, Bâle

Collection Gérard Valkier, Pays-Bas

Acquis auprès de cette dernière par l'actuel propriétaire en décembre 2016, selon l'actuel propriétaire

Collection Louis Grandchamp des Raux

La Haye, Galerie Ivo Bouwman, Najaastentoonstelling, 1998, reproduit

Nous remercions Madame Florence Valdès-Forain de nous avoir aimablement confirmé que l’œuvre sera incluse au catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre de Jean-Louis Forain en cours de préparation.

Un avis d’inclusion de Madame Florence Valdès-Forain pourra être délivré sur demande et à la charge de l’acquéreur.

“Mr Forain is one of the most incisive painters of modern life I know” (¹): this is how Karl Huysmans described Jean-Louis Forain. Forain’s interest in city nightlife led him to repeatedly explore the world of theatre and dance, bringing to it his own subversive interpretation.

The in-between moments - entr’acte, backstage, dressing room – were favoured by Forain, allowing him to draw back the curtain on the hidden reality of this world. First introduced to the Paris Opera by Edgar Degas, who was eighteen years older, Forain developed a taste for the spaces away from the stage where another sort of spectacle was being played out. In his works, dancers are often shown surrounded by men from high society seeking to seduce the young female performers while offering them financial support. Through these encounters, the artist highlighted social relationships and power dynamics, making these scenes a true reflection of Parisian society at the time.

This watercolour signed J. L. Forain, which can be dated to around 1880, represents this exact subject. In this work, a dancer facing the viewer turns her smiling face towards the smartly dressed man standing next to her in her dressing room. An older woman is fastening (or unfastening) a part of her costume at the waist, thus keeping the young woman in a static pose as she responds to the silent request of her suitor. Forain’s works, which fall within the scope of social commentary on the plight of dancers, were admired by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who declared in 1891 : “I belong to no school. I work on my own. I admire Degas and Forain” (2).

1.      Jean-Louis Forain 1852-1931, « La Comédie Parisienne », exhibition catalogue Paris, Petit Palais, 10 March-5 June 2011, p. 32, note 2.

2.      Quoted in op. cit., exh cat., 2011, p. 64.