Jean-Louis Forain (1852-1931)

Le dialogue

Details

Jean-Louis Forain (1852-1931)
Le dialogue
signed 'Forain' (lower right)
oil on canvas
27½ x 21¾ in. (70 x 55.3 cm.)

Provenance

Galerie Georges Petit, Paris.
Georges Bernheim, Paris.
Antonio Santamarina, Buenos Aires (acquired from the above).
Mercedes Santamarina, Buenos Aires (by descent from the above); sale, Ungaro y Barbará, Buenos Aires, 25-27 September 1946, lot 28 (titled El diálogo. Entretelones de teatro).
Acquired at the above sale by the previous owner.

Literature

Boletín Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, June 1934, p. 10.

Exhibited

Buenos Aires, Amigos del Arte, Forain, 1933, p. 20, no. 8 (titled Dialogue dans les Coulisses).
Buenos Aires, Galerie du Nord, Pintura Francesa, November 1956, no. 15 (illustrated).

Sale room notice

Mrs Valdès-Forain will include this painting in her forthcoming Forain catalogue raisonné.

Lot Essay

Jean-Louis Forain's friendship with Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet had a profound influence on the direction of his painting in the 1870s and 1880s. At the invitation of Degas, Forain participated in the fourth Impressionist exhibition in 1879, and again in 1880, 1881 and 1886. To subsidize his painting during these years, Forain was an illustrator for the journals Le Scapin, Courier Français and Le Figaro. Like Degas, he was especially drawn to the colorful world of the Paris Opéra ballet. Le dialogue presents a behind-the-scenes view into the world of the dancers who performed nightly at the Opéra. The harsh life of these young women, forced often to become mistresses to supplement their meager salaries, is satirically detailed in the present painting.

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