Impressionist and Modern Art

The present lot will be included in the forthcoming Van Dongen Digital Catalogue Raisonné, currently being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.

Provenance:

The Artist.

Acquired directly from the above.

Private Collection.

Christie's, London, sale of May 19, 1978, lot 51.

Sotheby's, London, sale of July 1, 1978, lot 213.

Galerie Taménaga, Tokyo, Japan.

Sotheby's, New York, sale of November 6, 2003, lot 169.

Opera Gallery, New York.

Acquired directly from the above in 2004.

Lot essay:

Largely a self-taught artist, Kees van Dongen grew up in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, and was famously expelled from school as a child for constantly sketching in class. The artist became a keen observer of the landscape and people around him, painting the surrounding countryside and the dock workers nearby as he honed his skills. He made a small living drawing for newspapers and magazines, both to accompany news stories and satirically. After a day trip to Paris in 1897, van Dongen fell in love with the city and moved there permanently, living at the Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre with fellow Fauve artists. His portrait studies began at this time, and he frequently enlisted Montmartre prostitutes as his models, as he did not have money to pay more professional models.

While van Dongen was steeped in the avant-garde art world of turn-of-the-century Paris, he quite naturally gravitated toward a Fauvist style independently, always experimenting with bold, bright colors and compositions bordering on abstraction. In the 1910s, his mistress Léa Alvin (also known as Jasmy Jacob), a fashion director and socialite, greatly influenced his style and also introduced him to the upper class and aristocratic society of Paris. Soon, having one’s portrait painted by van Dongen became so fashionable and desirable, his list of sitters came to include Josephine Baker, Brigitte Bardot, Maurice Chevalier, Anatole France, Fernande Olivier and King Leopold III. Of painting the portraits of high society women in particular, the artist once quipped: "The essential thing is to elongate the women and especially to make them slim. After that it just remains to enlarge their jewels. They are ravished."

While the exact identity of the present painting’s sitter, Dora, is not known, she appears to be one of the socialites the artist was frequently commissioned to paint. Unlike most of his other portraits, though, Dora is not adorned with the jewels and lavish clothing common to van Dongen’s social circles. This allowed the artist to play with color directly on her skin, the green shadow falling across her shoulder, and her captivating hazel-blue eyes and blushing cheeks recalling the artist’s Fauvist origins.