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Lot Essay
Christine Lenoir and Maria de la Ville Fromoit have confirmed the authenticity of this work.
When Lebasque moved to Paris in 1885, he often visited the atelier of Léon Bonnat; a painter, collector, and professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Influenced by Bonnat as well as his fellow students Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard, Lebasque adopted the intimiste style, of which the present large-scale work is an important example.
Henri Lebasque first visited the French Rivieria in 1906 at the suggestion of his friend Henri Manguin. In 1924, Lebasque relocated to the region to permanently take advantage of its unparalleled light. Returning often in the intervening years, the artist would earn the sobriquet “Painter of Joy and Light”.
Settling in Le Cannet, a town just to the north of Cannes, Lebasque continued painting landscapes and domestic scenes, but increasingly focused on the depictions of female nudes. Influenced by his friend and neighbour Henri Matisse, with whom Lebasque had founded the Salon d’Automne in Paris in 1903, he developed a penchant for the depiction of lavish patterning in interior spaces.
Sufused with warm, natural light, Lebasque’s languorous Nu à la peau de léopard, Le Cannet recalls Matisse’s depiction of voluptuous odalisques in exotic settings throughout the 1920s. The texture of the leopard rug and the upholstery on which the figure rests is suggested through the artist’s use of airy brushwork. The tinges of green at the extreme edges of the woman’s figure hint at the wild use of colour favoured by Matisse and his fellow fauve painters; however, in palette the present work is perhaps more closely related to the work of Camille Pissarro, with whom Lebasque had also studied in Paris.
Lisa A. Banner has written that Lebasque’s 1920s nudes were “the culmination of [his] intimist manner of painting—the celebration of the female form as fertile, warm, and inspiring... Matisse’s nudes of the same period, painted in his neighbouring villa on the Riviera, share his rich decorative sense, but approach the nude in a more intellectual style, as opposed to Lebasque’s sensuous style. Lebasque painted his young models in poses of penetrating intimacy and subtle clarity” (Exh. cat., Lebasque, San Francisco, 1986, pp. 70 and 72).
When Lebasque moved to Paris in 1885, he often visited the atelier of Léon Bonnat; a painter, collector, and professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Influenced by Bonnat as well as his fellow students Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard, Lebasque adopted the intimiste style, of which the present large-scale work is an important example.
Henri Lebasque first visited the French Rivieria in 1906 at the suggestion of his friend Henri Manguin. In 1924, Lebasque relocated to the region to permanently take advantage of its unparalleled light. Returning often in the intervening years, the artist would earn the sobriquet “Painter of Joy and Light”.
Settling in Le Cannet, a town just to the north of Cannes, Lebasque continued painting landscapes and domestic scenes, but increasingly focused on the depictions of female nudes. Influenced by his friend and neighbour Henri Matisse, with whom Lebasque had founded the Salon d’Automne in Paris in 1903, he developed a penchant for the depiction of lavish patterning in interior spaces.
Sufused with warm, natural light, Lebasque’s languorous Nu à la peau de léopard, Le Cannet recalls Matisse’s depiction of voluptuous odalisques in exotic settings throughout the 1920s. The texture of the leopard rug and the upholstery on which the figure rests is suggested through the artist’s use of airy brushwork. The tinges of green at the extreme edges of the woman’s figure hint at the wild use of colour favoured by Matisse and his fellow fauve painters; however, in palette the present work is perhaps more closely related to the work of Camille Pissarro, with whom Lebasque had also studied in Paris.
Lisa A. Banner has written that Lebasque’s 1920s nudes were “the culmination of [his] intimist manner of painting—the celebration of the female form as fertile, warm, and inspiring... Matisse’s nudes of the same period, painted in his neighbouring villa on the Riviera, share his rich decorative sense, but approach the nude in a more intellectual style, as opposed to Lebasque’s sensuous style. Lebasque painted his young models in poses of penetrating intimacy and subtle clarity” (Exh. cat., Lebasque, San Francisco, 1986, pp. 70 and 72).