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Lot Essay
Jacques Chalom des Cordes will include this painting in his forthcoming van Dongen catalogue raisonné being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Institute.
The spring of 1921 saw van Dongen embroiled in a 'grand scandale' in Paris with the exhibition of his celebrated portrait of Anatole France at the Nationale. Van Dongen met a hail of criticism for portraying the grand man of French letters as an old man. One commentator said that van Dongen had made the famous writer look like a camembert. The artist retreated to Venice in the company of the exotic figure of the Marchesa Casati. 'He met this notorious femme-fatale, who embodied all the extravagance and vice of the fin-de-siècle in 1921, through Jasmy. The Casati introduced him into a very different society than that he had known until then - in which complexity and elegance abounded and which was inhabited by beautiful, supercilious and neurotic women. It meant a change in his life and with typical cynicism he remarked: "There was less colour but the women smelt better!" Van Dongen and the Casati were together in Venice where he painted a charming and witty series of Venetian scenes which possess a balletic grace and which were published by Bernheim' (D. Sutton, Van Dongen, 1971, p. 48).
'Venise a inspiré de nombreux peintres, mais elle a surement exercé sur Van Dongen un charme particulier: il en ramené des images fascinantes où, dans ses sites réputés, baignant dans une lumière intense, évoluent d'élégantes Parisiennes. Van Dongen fait apparaître Venise sous un jour nouveau. Et c'est tout naturellement à lui que s'addressera Paul Leclère, en 1925, pour l'illustration de sa narration poêtique Venise, seuil des Eaux' (J. Kyriazi, Van Dongen après le Fauvisme, Lausanne, 1987, p. 40).
The spring of 1921 saw van Dongen embroiled in a 'grand scandale' in Paris with the exhibition of his celebrated portrait of Anatole France at the Nationale. Van Dongen met a hail of criticism for portraying the grand man of French letters as an old man. One commentator said that van Dongen had made the famous writer look like a camembert. The artist retreated to Venice in the company of the exotic figure of the Marchesa Casati. 'He met this notorious femme-fatale, who embodied all the extravagance and vice of the fin-de-siècle in 1921, through Jasmy. The Casati introduced him into a very different society than that he had known until then - in which complexity and elegance abounded and which was inhabited by beautiful, supercilious and neurotic women. It meant a change in his life and with typical cynicism he remarked: "There was less colour but the women smelt better!" Van Dongen and the Casati were together in Venice where he painted a charming and witty series of Venetian scenes which possess a balletic grace and which were published by Bernheim' (D. Sutton, Van Dongen, 1971, p. 48).
'Venise a inspiré de nombreux peintres, mais elle a surement exercé sur Van Dongen un charme particulier: il en ramené des images fascinantes où, dans ses sites réputés, baignant dans une lumière intense, évoluent d'élégantes Parisiennes. Van Dongen fait apparaître Venise sous un jour nouveau. Et c'est tout naturellement à lui que s'addressera Paul Leclère, en 1925, pour l'illustration de sa narration poêtique Venise, seuil des Eaux' (J. Kyriazi, Van Dongen après le Fauvisme, Lausanne, 1987, p. 40).