Echoes of the Past: Property from an Important Private Collection

The Boldini-De Nittis-Zandomeneghi Archives has previously confirmed the authenticity of this lot, which is referenced under Archiving Certificate n. 418673 issued on December 18, 2017. This certificate is now lost.

Provenance:

Durand-Ruel, Paris (possibly his label on the verso:?277 / Zandomeneghi / [jeu]ne femme au / bouquet des fleurs / 267 ...- pastel),

acquired directly from the Artist

Sold: Sotheby's, New York, January 31, 2018, Lot 217

Lot Essay:

This striking work exemplifies Zandomeneghi’s skill with the delicate medium of pastel. The artist adopted in the 1890s, mainly using it for his portraits of women and children. Like many of his favorite subjects, Young Woman with a Bouquet of Flowers depicts the late nineteenth century life of the Parisienne. However, while fellow Italian expatriates like Giuseppe de Nittis and Giovanni Boldini favored painting fashionably dressed ladies, Zandomeneghi preferred portraying women and girls observed in the private moments of their everyday life. 

In the present work, the cropping of the composition and slight lean of the figure’s posture creates a sense of intimacy and connects subject and viewer. The artist suggests the softness of his model’s pale skin with the pastel, and leaves the exposed paper to create highlights along her forehead and cheek. A rich buildup of the medium creates thick, soft upswept strands of hair decorated with a finely carved wooden hairpin, perhaps an allusion to the contemporary trend of Japonisme­. Zandomeneghi’s subtly shifts the soft pinks and buttery yellows of casually arranged daisies with the vibrant blue of cornflowers, while white swirls and wavy vertical lines create abstract patterns of fabric and wallpaper. The complex intertwining of tone and texture is a hallmark of the artist’s best pastels.

A Venetian by birth, Federico Zandomeneghi associated with the Macchiaioli in Florence before moving to Paris in 1874. By the late 1870s he had become a habitué of the Café de la Nouvelle-Athènes on the Place Pigalle in Montmartre, where he met and befriended Edgar Degas. The two artists, both difficult, ill-tempered characters, were to remain lifelong friends. Degas persuaded Zandomeneghi to exhibit at the fourth Impressionist exhibition in 1879, and the Italian also took part in the Impressionist exhibitions of 1880, 1881, and 1886.

While the artist's working habits and compositional choices link him to Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, as well as Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot, his compositions are specific to him and his Italian heritage. Works like Young Woman with a Bouquet of Flowers earned him the additional nickname of “Le vénitien,” stemming from his brilliant yet subtle use of color that recalls the work of the Macchiaioli.