Geisha at her Toilet

Details

ROBERT FREDERICK BLUM (1857-1903)
Geisha at her Toilet
stamped with artist's device 'Blum' (lower right)
pastel on paperboard
14 ¼ x 11 ½ in. (36.2 x 29.2 cm.)
Executed circa 1891-92.

Provenance

Alfred Corning Clark, New York.
Private collection, New York, by descent from the above.
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York.
Private collection, Atherton, California, 1987.
Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York.
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1995.

Exhibited

New York, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., American Masterworks on Paper, November 23, 1985-January 4, 1986, pp. 6, 25, no. 21, illustrated (as Geisha).
New York, Hollis Taggart Galleries, Favorite Places: Landscapes and Interiors by American Impressionists, May 18-June 24, 1995, p. 8, illustrated (as Geisha).
New York, Hollis Taggart Galleries, American Artists in Japan, May 21-June 29, 1996.
Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Archives of American Art, No Day Without a Line: Whistler in the Archives of American Art, October 9, 2003-January 14, 2004.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

Robert Blum was one of the first American artists to travel to Japan in 1890. He had visited the Japanese Pavilion at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876 and was also advised by James McNeill Whistler to look to Japanese design principles while in Venice with Whistler and William Merritt Chase from 1879-81. When Blum was able to visit Japan himself in the 1890s, he called it "the most glorious experience I have ever had" and created illustrations for Scribner's magazine based on his travels. As seen in the present work, Blum was an accomplished pastelist, serving as the president of the Society of Painters in Pastel in New York.

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