Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York

Collection M. et Mme Donald B. Straus, New York

Don au Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1967

Vente Paris, Christie’s, Vente provenant de la collection du Museum of Modern Art, New York, 23 mars 2017, lot 118 

Acquis lors de cette vente par l'actuel propriétaire

Collection Louis Grandchamp des Raux

New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Works on Paper, mars-juin 1973

Londres,The British Museum, Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, A Century of Modern Drawing from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, juin 1982 - avril 1983, n° 9 p. 42, reproduit fig.105.

Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Balthus, janvier-mars 1996

J. Clair et V. Monnier, Balthus, Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre complet, Gallimard, Paris, 1999, n° D 1091, reproduit en noir et blanc p. 329

Balthus crossed the entire 20th century developing a unique figurative body of work that lies between classical tradition and poetic exploration. Eliciting fascination and controversy, his art lays claim to the legacy of the Old Masters. The artist enjoyed visiting the Louvre and made no secret of his admiration for Courbet and Géricault, and, following his trip to Italy in 1926, for Piero della Francesca and Masaccio. Coupled with this classical pictorial language is a mysterious realism with a suggestive narrative that propels the viewer into a fantastical world.

The painter deliberately kept his distance from contemporary artistic movements; he was an enigma who defied categorisation. The study of the nude, which was of great importance in the academic training of the great masters, lies at the heart of his work and was the origin of his success. Balthus rose to fame following the exhibition of his paintings of nude young girls at the Galerie Pierre Loeb in 1934, which caused a resounding scandal.

At the time this drawing was executed, the artist was staying at the Villa Medici. Appointed director of the Académie de France in Rome in 1961, a position that he held until 1977, he devoted himself mainly to extensive renovation work on the building, which left him with little time to paint. His artistic production during his years in Rome thus leans towards graphic works.

From this period onwards, Balthus considered his drawings to be works in their own right, and not only preparatory studies.

His model was his young wife Setsuko Ideta whom he married in 1967, the year of this drawing. The pose of this young sleeping woman – head thrown back, arm dropped to the side and chest pointed upwards – appears in other drawings of the artist done several years previously (ill. 1), as well as in a series of paintings executed some twenty years earlier (ill. 2 and 3). This position of abandon, which the artist was particularly fond of, seems to evoke a deep yet restless sleep. Balthus claimed that he had never consciously sought to produce erotic images; according to him, the power of his works lay instead in the atmosphere of ambiguity and mystery they create, leaving the viewer free to project onto them their own interpretations.