This work was previously authenticated by Jean-Claude Bellier.

Provenance:

Galerie Hervé, Paris in 1969.

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner.

Exhibited:

Paris, Galeries Georges Petit, Lebasque, March 11-30, 1927.

Lot Note:

Nu Étendu, Bras Levés, Au Coussin Bleu, c. 1920-1921, is a compelling example of the artist Henri Lebasque’s intimiste style. Born in Champigné, Lebasque went to Paris in 1885 to study art. He frequented the atélier of Léon Bonnat, the French painter, collector, and teacher at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and befriended fellow students Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard, who would go on to establish the Nabis group. He was also influenced by the Intimists, who favored the calm and quietude of domestic subject matter. The theories on complimentary color by Seurat and Signac also left a lasting impact on Lebasque and remained essential to his technique throughout his life.

In the 1920s, Lebasque increasingly focused on the depiction of female nudes in richly sumptuous interiors. Guided by his friend Henri Matisse, with whom Lebasque had founded the Salon d'automne in Paris in 1903, he developed an affinity for the depiction of lavish patterning in interior spaces. Lebasque painted at least three versions of the present composition, one of which currently resides in the Musée de Luxembourg. Nu Étendu, Bras Levés, Au Coussin Bleu depicts a languorous, voluptuous nude who reclines on a blue and white floral cushion, which strongly contrasts against the Middle Eastern and African textiles on which she lies. The use of these fabrics reflects the artist’s penchant for evoking exotic settings, while the tinges of green along the extreme edges of the woman's figure intimate at the wild use of color favored by Matisse and his fellow fauve painters.

Of the nudes painted by Lebasque in the 1920s, Lisa A. Banner has written:

[these nudes were] the culmination of [Lebasque's] intimist manner of painting--the celebration of the female form as fertile, warm, and inspiring...Matisse's nudes of the same period, painted in his neighboring villa on the Riviera, share his rich decorative sense, but approach the nude in a more intellectual style, as opposed to Lebasque's sensuous style. Lebasque painted his young models in poses of penetrating intimacy and subtle clarity (in Lebasque, exh. cat., Montgomery Gallery, San Francisco, 1986, pp. 70; 72).

Framed: 34 x 40 x 3 in.

The unlined canvas is in overall good condition. There is some scattered soiling throughout, for instance two drips of white soiling at bottom right that fluoresce under UV light. There is a slight scuff to the canvas at top left, in the figure's underarm, approx 1/4 in. Under UV light some pigments fluoresce, and there are areas of inpainting visible at top and bottom. Additional images available upon request.

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