Lot Essay
Alfred Stevens's paintings of women have been compared to "a rare perfume concentrated within a scent bottle" - words written by the 19th century writer and art critic, Camille Lemonnier to describe Stevens's visual "poems" of the modern woman of the Second Empire dressed in the finest satins, velvets and silks. This popular female type became Stevens's trademark, as well as his means to define modernity in both subject and painting technique.
Stevens's gratest triumph came in 1867 at the Exposition Universelle in Paris where he exhibited eighteen paintings, received a first class medal, was promoted to Officer of the Legion of Honor, and invited to an Imperial Grand Ball at the Tuileries. Today his fame and popularity are all but obscure, even though during his lifetime the roster of his closest friends and associates included Delacroix, Courbet, Corot, Manet, Rousseau, Whistler and Degas. His works were avidly collected by many of the most prominent individuals in the final decades of the 19th century: Belmont, Walters, Havemeyer, Stewart and Vanderbilt, and the American Impressionist, William Merritt Chase owned no less than twelve of his paintings.
The first three dacades of Steven's career were spent painting elegant women, and then in 1880, we see a shift in his choice of subject matter. After developing a malady caused by inhailing turpentine fumes, his medical advisor and friend, Dr. Peter, recommended that Stevens spent time at the seashore as a cure. These visits to Le Havre resulted in the late marine paintings that characterized the end of his career. However his first painitngs from his sojourns to the seashore were a combination of the subject he knew best - the modern woman beautifully dressed, combined with the sea and backdrop. One of his earliest painitngs from this period is In Deep Thought, 1881 (The St. Louis Art Museum) depicting an elegant young woman with her little dog, staring out to sea. This composition was transformed two years later into one of Steven's most well-known paintings, La veuve et ses enfants, which was purchased for the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels in 1883. In this large scale painting (45 x 63in.), Stevens showed a young widow holding a baby. She is seated at a tripod table, and is dressed in black. The sash of the baby's dress is also a dark color. The pretty young widow gazes into space with a disconsolate expression. A young girl, perhaps her daughter, dressed in a sailor suit and sturdy black shoes, stares out at a stormy sea. On the table is a straw hat, and at the lower left of the composition are pots of geraniums.
The appearance of our painting, previously unknown, is a major discovery, and we may only speculate as to the reasons for its existance. Also painted in 1883, the composition is totally inspired by the painting in the Brussels Museum, but the mood and atmosphere have been changed. Stevens has taken the somber mood of the grieving widow and dark stormy sea, and transformed it into a painting that is filled with joy and happiness. It is possible that one of his clients saw and admired the painting of the widow and her children, and requested another version, one that convayed a happier moment. The end result was a painting filled with domestic bliss. The young mother now wears a pale-colored silk dress trimmed with ruffles and lace. She cradles her sleeping baby in her left arm, and the infant's dress is now tied with a pink sash. Her straw hat sports a white ribbon band, whereas in the larger painting, the decoration was in black. A bouquet of colorful flowers rests on the table and a pink rose has tumbled onto the floor below. Stevens has altered the mother's expression, and now she gazes lovingly at her sleeping child. But perhaps the most charming feature of the new composition is the standing little girl, whose sturdy black shoes have been replaced by a pair a fancy satin pumps with bows, obviously borrowed from her mother who rests her feet on a foot stool. The gloomy and stormy sea has now been turned into a peaceful sunset with tiny boats silhouetted against the horizon.
The reappearance of this lost painting adds another important work to the career of Alfred Stevens. We are reminded of his charming paintings from the early 1860s which celebrated the joys of motherhood. In 1883, Stevens entered the final two decades of his career, and his happy family vacationing at the seashore may be one of the last paintings that can be compared to his greatest compositions from the late 1860s and 1870s.
We are grateful to Professor William Coles for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
Stevens's gratest triumph came in 1867 at the Exposition Universelle in Paris where he exhibited eighteen paintings, received a first class medal, was promoted to Officer of the Legion of Honor, and invited to an Imperial Grand Ball at the Tuileries. Today his fame and popularity are all but obscure, even though during his lifetime the roster of his closest friends and associates included Delacroix, Courbet, Corot, Manet, Rousseau, Whistler and Degas. His works were avidly collected by many of the most prominent individuals in the final decades of the 19th century: Belmont, Walters, Havemeyer, Stewart and Vanderbilt, and the American Impressionist, William Merritt Chase owned no less than twelve of his paintings.
The first three dacades of Steven's career were spent painting elegant women, and then in 1880, we see a shift in his choice of subject matter. After developing a malady caused by inhailing turpentine fumes, his medical advisor and friend, Dr. Peter, recommended that Stevens spent time at the seashore as a cure. These visits to Le Havre resulted in the late marine paintings that characterized the end of his career. However his first painitngs from his sojourns to the seashore were a combination of the subject he knew best - the modern woman beautifully dressed, combined with the sea and backdrop. One of his earliest painitngs from this period is In Deep Thought, 1881 (The St. Louis Art Museum) depicting an elegant young woman with her little dog, staring out to sea. This composition was transformed two years later into one of Steven's most well-known paintings, La veuve et ses enfants, which was purchased for the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels in 1883. In this large scale painting (45 x 63in.), Stevens showed a young widow holding a baby. She is seated at a tripod table, and is dressed in black. The sash of the baby's dress is also a dark color. The pretty young widow gazes into space with a disconsolate expression. A young girl, perhaps her daughter, dressed in a sailor suit and sturdy black shoes, stares out at a stormy sea. On the table is a straw hat, and at the lower left of the composition are pots of geraniums.
The appearance of our painting, previously unknown, is a major discovery, and we may only speculate as to the reasons for its existance. Also painted in 1883, the composition is totally inspired by the painting in the Brussels Museum, but the mood and atmosphere have been changed. Stevens has taken the somber mood of the grieving widow and dark stormy sea, and transformed it into a painting that is filled with joy and happiness. It is possible that one of his clients saw and admired the painting of the widow and her children, and requested another version, one that convayed a happier moment. The end result was a painting filled with domestic bliss. The young mother now wears a pale-colored silk dress trimmed with ruffles and lace. She cradles her sleeping baby in her left arm, and the infant's dress is now tied with a pink sash. Her straw hat sports a white ribbon band, whereas in the larger painting, the decoration was in black. A bouquet of colorful flowers rests on the table and a pink rose has tumbled onto the floor below. Stevens has altered the mother's expression, and now she gazes lovingly at her sleeping child. But perhaps the most charming feature of the new composition is the standing little girl, whose sturdy black shoes have been replaced by a pair a fancy satin pumps with bows, obviously borrowed from her mother who rests her feet on a foot stool. The gloomy and stormy sea has now been turned into a peaceful sunset with tiny boats silhouetted against the horizon.
The reappearance of this lost painting adds another important work to the career of Alfred Stevens. We are reminded of his charming paintings from the early 1860s which celebrated the joys of motherhood. In 1883, Stevens entered the final two decades of his career, and his happy family vacationing at the seashore may be one of the last paintings that can be compared to his greatest compositions from the late 1860s and 1870s.
We are grateful to Professor William Coles for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.