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Lot Essay
From its creation in 1892, The Cigarette Girl has accrued a fascinating history. Acquired in 1893 at the Chicago World’s Fair—in which the Swedish Exhibit was inarguably the highlight—the work has remained within the same family since and benefits from exceptional provenance. Hailed by an art critic as ‘representing Zorn at his best’, this painting has never appeared on the auction market.
During the 1890s Zorn was occupied with an impressive itinerary of commissioned portraiture in America. The original owner of The Cigarette Girl, Mr. Robert W. de Forest, modeled for Zorn (fig. 1) and the two ‘dined and went to the theater’ together during the artist’s return trips to New York (W. & W. Hagans, Zorn in America: A Swedish Impressionist of the Gilded Age, Chicago, 2009, p. 213). De Forest, a prominent New York attorney at the time, was known for balancing his business and artistic interests and eventually succeeded J. Pierpont Morgan as president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1913 until his death in 1931 (Ibid., p. 187). The family's connection to the museum is further strengthened by the fact that de Forest’s wife was the daughter of John Taylor Johnston, the founding president of the Metropolitan Museum in 1870.
During its tenure with the de Forests, The Cigarette Girl served as a highlight in numerous important exhibitions across the United States and received positive reviews in several significant art journals. It was one of a small group of paintings by Zorn included in the seminal traveling exhibition Representative Works of Contemporary Swedish Artists that toured six major American museums from 1895-96 as a result of the Swedish success at the World’s Fair. In a review of the exhibition, The Cigarette Girl was honored specifically: ‘The collection of oil paintings by living Swedish masters, at the Boston Art Club last month, was most interesting and refreshing. Zorn was represented by seven examples… one of a girl with a cigarette was the pièce de résistance, for its simple naturalness and charm, notwithstanding its objectiveness’ (‘Studio-Talk’, The Studio, vol. 7, May 1896, p. 249). Twenty years later it was lent to the Brooklyn Museum for a Swedish art exhibition (fig. 2), and in 1920 The Cigarette Girl was shown in an exhibition at the Carnegie Institute where Zorn was highly regarded, having painted a portrait of Andrew Carnegie in 1911 and served on the selection committee. Subsequently the work traveled to Chicago and Buffalo as a Carnegie Institute exhibition highlight. It is evident that Zorn, in addition to myriad exhibition curators and critics, felt that The Cigarette Girl was a superlative example in his oeuvre.
(fig. 1) Anders Zorn, Mr. Robert Weeks de Forest, a notable New York lawyer and philanthropist, Museum of the City of New York
(fig. 2) Swedish Art Exhibition [30 January-28 February 1916], Installation view, Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Office of the Director (W.H. Fox, 1913-33)
During the 1890s Zorn was occupied with an impressive itinerary of commissioned portraiture in America. The original owner of The Cigarette Girl, Mr. Robert W. de Forest, modeled for Zorn (fig. 1) and the two ‘dined and went to the theater’ together during the artist’s return trips to New York (W. & W. Hagans, Zorn in America: A Swedish Impressionist of the Gilded Age, Chicago, 2009, p. 213). De Forest, a prominent New York attorney at the time, was known for balancing his business and artistic interests and eventually succeeded J. Pierpont Morgan as president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1913 until his death in 1931 (Ibid., p. 187). The family's connection to the museum is further strengthened by the fact that de Forest’s wife was the daughter of John Taylor Johnston, the founding president of the Metropolitan Museum in 1870.
During its tenure with the de Forests, The Cigarette Girl served as a highlight in numerous important exhibitions across the United States and received positive reviews in several significant art journals. It was one of a small group of paintings by Zorn included in the seminal traveling exhibition Representative Works of Contemporary Swedish Artists that toured six major American museums from 1895-96 as a result of the Swedish success at the World’s Fair. In a review of the exhibition, The Cigarette Girl was honored specifically: ‘The collection of oil paintings by living Swedish masters, at the Boston Art Club last month, was most interesting and refreshing. Zorn was represented by seven examples… one of a girl with a cigarette was the pièce de résistance, for its simple naturalness and charm, notwithstanding its objectiveness’ (‘Studio-Talk’, The Studio, vol. 7, May 1896, p. 249). Twenty years later it was lent to the Brooklyn Museum for a Swedish art exhibition (fig. 2), and in 1920 The Cigarette Girl was shown in an exhibition at the Carnegie Institute where Zorn was highly regarded, having painted a portrait of Andrew Carnegie in 1911 and served on the selection committee. Subsequently the work traveled to Chicago and Buffalo as a Carnegie Institute exhibition highlight. It is evident that Zorn, in addition to myriad exhibition curators and critics, felt that The Cigarette Girl was a superlative example in his oeuvre.
(fig. 1) Anders Zorn, Mr. Robert Weeks de Forest, a notable New York lawyer and philanthropist, Museum of the City of New York
(fig. 2) Swedish Art Exhibition [30 January-28 February 1916], Installation view, Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Office of the Director (W.H. Fox, 1913-33)