European Art

Provenance:

Property of a Midwestern University

Sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 26, 1994, Lot 101

Guarisco Galleries, Washington, DC

Purchased from the above by the present owners

Lot note:

In Charles Amable Lenoir’s Pandora, 1902, the namesake subject solemnly gazes at the viewer as she delicately holds the gold box that contains all the world’s evils. Above her, an apple tree in full fruit can be seen, the symbol of Eve. Pandora’s porcelain skin and the smoothly painted surfaces throughout recall the teachings of William-Adolphe Bouguereau, with whom Lenoir studied at the Académie Julian, beginning in 1882. The son of a customs officer and a seamstress, Lenoir began his career not as an artist but as a teacher. He eventually saved enough money to pursue his true interest, to become an artist, and entered the École des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1881. His tenacity and talent eventually led him to win the Second Prix de Rome in 1889 for his painting, Jésus et le paralytique (Jesus and a Sick Man with Palsy), and then the First Prix de Rome the following year for Le Reniement de Saint Pierre (The Denial of St. Peter).

In 1887, Lenoir made his debut at the Paris Salon, where he exhibited mostly portraits, but then later focused on genre paintings, as well as religious and mythological subjects. After experimenting with other styles, including Romanticism and the Rococo, he eventually devoted himself to academic painting in the style of his teacher Bouguereau. Lenoir’s paintings reflect the academic values of accurate drawing, contour, and smooth paint surfaces. These paintings also echo the appeal of feminine beauty during the nineteenth century, for “a continuing fondness for the ‘keepsake’ tradition of the depiction of beauty, gentle, sweet and somewhat coy” (Philip Hook and Mark Pottimore, Popular 19th Century Painting: A Dictionary of European Genre Painters, Woodbridge, 1986, p. 58). Lenoir favored images of beautiful women and girls, coyly erotic nudes, and cupids, as well as allegorical, religious, and mythological scenes, such as Pandora.

In Greek mythology, Zeus commands Hephaestus, god of blacksmithing and metallurgy, to mold from earth a “beautiful evil,” a woman to punish humankind after they receive the stolen gift of fire from Prometheus. Athena then dresses Pandora in a silvery gown, an embroidered veil, garland, and an ornate crown. According to Hesiod’s Works and Days, she was “sheer guile, not to be withstood by men.” She came with a jar (later corruptly translated to a box), given to her by Zeus, that contains countless plagues. Presented as a wife to Epimetheus, Pandora promptly opens the container and scatters all the sins of the world. Depicted in varied guises throughout the centuries in art, by the late 19th century, Pandora was idealized as a dangerous beauty, usually naked or semi-naked.

In Lenoir’s version, Pandora appears less threatening than mysteriously beguiling as she looks forthrightly at the viewer. Her gown slips slightly to reveal a smooth, white shoulder and the diaphanous white fabric of this gown provides a tantalizing glimpse of well-shaped legs above delicate, bare feet. A gauzy veil, spangled with silver stars, quivers in a breeze behind her lithe figure. The apples that hang above her dark hair knowingly point to Pandora’s comparison to Eve, who also unwittingly released evil, and knowledge, into the world. A virtuoso example of French Academic mythological painting, Lenoir’s Pandora is a symbol of provocative beauty that comes with an equal measure of unknown risk.