Le printemps en fleurs

Jean-Gabriel Domergue displayed an artistic talent from an early age. In 1920 he was among the founders of the Salon de la Mode par les Artistes, devoted to fashion in painting, drawing, sculpture and decoration. His work was much in demand, for advertising posters, book covers and illustrations, costume designs and stage sets, fashion illustrations, and as a painter of the elegant Parisian woman. Domergue organized fashionable balls and galas in Paris, such as the 1922 Venetian Ball at the Opéra, as well as events in Deauville, Juan-les-Pins, Monaco, Biarritz and Cannes, where in 1926 he built a villa that later became a museum devoted to his work. From 1955 he served as a curator at the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris.

This gouache may be related to a handful of similar compositions of a young woman seated in front of a tall mirror that Domergue produced in the early 1920s.It is particularly close to the left half of Domergue's painting Eve at a Mirror (1921), which depicts a woman looking into a mirror held by a lascivious satyr, with a golden carriage behind. A painting of an analogous subject, entitled Dans l’ombre d’une jeune fille en fleur, dated 1922 and exhibited at the Salon of that year, depicts a woman with a fan, dressed in white, underneath a spray of wisteria.

We are grateful to Noé Willer for confirming the authenticity of this work. A certificate can be issued by Noé Willer at the expense of the purchaser.