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Lot Essay
To be included in the forthcoming Kees van Dongen catalogue raisonné being prepared by Jacques Chalom Des Cordes under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Institute.
An exciting recent discovery, La danse des Carpeaux (le bal masqueé à l'Opéra is filled with the life and colour that distinguish Van Dongen's classic depictions of the Parisian nightlife. Authenticating the painting, Jacques Chalom des Cordes pointed out that a gouache of the same subject exists from 1904, pointing to a similar date for the present picture. This was the year that Van Dongen truly arrived on the Parisian art scene: sponsored by Signac and Luce, he participated in the Salon des Indépendants that year, and later had his first ever one-man show at Vollard's.
During this period, a Fauve character and a Fauve understanding of colour came to flavour Van Dongen's works, superseding the earlier influence of illustrators such as Steinlen. However, the vitality that had marked his earlier pictures came further to the fore. In La danse des Carpeaux (le bal masqueé à l'Opéra, there is a huge amount of life and movement. Members of the beau monde and figures of authority wander around the lively dancing women of the title.
La danse des Carpeaux (le bal masqueé à l'Opéra is a satirical and humourous painting, as well as a lively vignette of the nightlife in Paris. For the naked dancers who are the focus of the picture are in fact taken from a sculpture by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux from the façade of Charles Garnier's Opéra. Unveiled in 1869, Carpeaux's La danse was considered scandalous and salacious, and there were even calls for it to be removed. The sculpture was even vandalised by protestors, disgusted that such indecency could exist on a public building-- having been funded with public monies. There was a huge furore, with writers such as Zola leaping to the sculpture's defence. Van Dongen, by presenting the same composition as a dance act within a crowd of supposedly respectable citizens, lampoons society, showing the people returning from their bal masqueé at the Opéra and passing the living, writhing incarnations of Carpeaux's sculpture on the façade. There is an intoxicating decadence to the image, and despite his inherent criticism of the scene, Van Dongen has rendered the scene with relish and wit.
Van Dongen met the father of the present owner soon after his appointment as Brazilian Consul to Parisin 1946. The pair remained good friends until the artist's death in 1968. When asked by the Consul why he had painted the women wearing stockings and garters when Carpeaux had shown them naked, Van Dongen-- plainly aware of the scandal caused by the nudity in the original sculpture-- replied with a wry smile that he had not wanted the women in his painting to be considered similarly indecent.
An exciting recent discovery, La danse des Carpeaux (le bal masqueé à l'Opéra is filled with the life and colour that distinguish Van Dongen's classic depictions of the Parisian nightlife. Authenticating the painting, Jacques Chalom des Cordes pointed out that a gouache of the same subject exists from 1904, pointing to a similar date for the present picture. This was the year that Van Dongen truly arrived on the Parisian art scene: sponsored by Signac and Luce, he participated in the Salon des Indépendants that year, and later had his first ever one-man show at Vollard's.
During this period, a Fauve character and a Fauve understanding of colour came to flavour Van Dongen's works, superseding the earlier influence of illustrators such as Steinlen. However, the vitality that had marked his earlier pictures came further to the fore. In La danse des Carpeaux (le bal masqueé à l'Opéra, there is a huge amount of life and movement. Members of the beau monde and figures of authority wander around the lively dancing women of the title.
La danse des Carpeaux (le bal masqueé à l'Opéra is a satirical and humourous painting, as well as a lively vignette of the nightlife in Paris. For the naked dancers who are the focus of the picture are in fact taken from a sculpture by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux from the façade of Charles Garnier's Opéra. Unveiled in 1869, Carpeaux's La danse was considered scandalous and salacious, and there were even calls for it to be removed. The sculpture was even vandalised by protestors, disgusted that such indecency could exist on a public building-- having been funded with public monies. There was a huge furore, with writers such as Zola leaping to the sculpture's defence. Van Dongen, by presenting the same composition as a dance act within a crowd of supposedly respectable citizens, lampoons society, showing the people returning from their bal masqueé at the Opéra and passing the living, writhing incarnations of Carpeaux's sculpture on the façade. There is an intoxicating decadence to the image, and despite his inherent criticism of the scene, Van Dongen has rendered the scene with relish and wit.
Van Dongen met the father of the present owner soon after his appointment as Brazilian Consul to Parisin 1946. The pair remained good friends until the artist's death in 1968. When asked by the Consul why he had painted the women wearing stockings and garters when Carpeaux had shown them naked, Van Dongen-- plainly aware of the scandal caused by the nudity in the original sculpture-- replied with a wry smile that he had not wanted the women in his painting to be considered similarly indecent.