Albert BESNARD (1849-1934) - Lot 95

Lot 95
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Albert BESNARD (1849-1934) - Lot 95
Albert BESNARD (1849-1934) Woman with Roses or The Raised Hand, circa 1910 Pastel on paper pasted on canvas. Signed upper right. 60 x 49 cm PROVENANCE : - Franz Goerg collection, Reims; - Hôtel Drouot sale, Paris, May 30, 1910, lot 110 reproduced; - Hôtel Drouot sale, Paris, May 23, 1975, lot 5; - Artcurial sale, Paris, December 13, 2005, lot 87; - private collection, Paris. EXHIBITION: Albert Besnard (1849-1934), Modernités Belle Époque, Palais Lumière, Évian, 2016 and 2017, catalog no. 25* p.122. BIBLIOGRAPHY: - Jean Rossignol collection catalog, 2005, p.96 ; - Claude Roger-Marx, The Studio, 1935, p.160-161 ; - catalog of the Evian exhibition, 2016-2017. Grand Prix de Rome in 1874, Albert Besnard had a career that was a succession of successes, awards and official honors. He was commissioned to decorate several Parisian monuments: the ceiling of the Salon des Sciences of the Hôtel de Ville de Paris, the vestibule of the École de Pharmacie de Paris, the chemistry amphitheater of the Sorbonne, the ceiling of the Comédie-Française, the cupola of the Petit Palais, the Salle des mariages of the town hall of the 1st arrondissement. He also participated in the decoration of private residences in Paris such as the Hôtel Rouché, rue de Prony, alongside Maurice Denis and George Desvallières. He was appointed director of the Villa Medici in Rome in 1913 and director of Fine Arts in 1922. He was the first painter - and before Georges Braque - to have a national funeral. Besnard was an admirable portraitist whose masterpiece is the portrait of his family, dated 1890 and preserved in the Musée d'Orsay. He is also the witness of the aristocratic and artistic worldliness of the late nineteenth century: portraits of Princess Mathilde, Francis Jourdain, Madame Georges Rodenbach, Boni de Castellane, Paul Jamot, Madame Pillet-Will... Chantal Beauvalot, a specialist of the painter, subtitles her communication on The image of the woman in the painting of Albert Besnard in the Evian catalogue* as follows: "The extreme feeling of life". This formula illustrates perfectly the emotion which emanates from our pastel. We could also quote Claude Roger Marx about Besnard's portraits: "The rapid impulse and the delicious warmth of his creations, a mixture of nobility and familiarity...". Sensuality of the naked body, full and mellow flesh, pearly or bluish reflections of the bust, discreet smile joined to the sibylline gesture, the woman of Albert Besnard here troubles and enchants us as she did in her time. Our file is largely indebted to the texts of Mrs. Chantal Beauvalot (Catalogue, Evian*) whom we thank very particularly.
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