Tamara de Lempicka

Private Collection, France (sold: Sotheby's, New York, November 12, 1988, lot 406)

Private Collection (acquired at the above sale)

Barry Friedman Ltd., New York (by 1994)

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Paris, Galerie du Luxembourg, Tamara de Lempicka de 1925 à 1935, 1972, no. 42, illustrated p. 57 (titled Portrait d'Arlette Boucard)

Tokyo & Osaka, Seibu Galleries, Tamara de Lempicka, 1981

Zürich, Walter Haas, Art Déco, le Style Moderne, 1981, no. 1

London, Royal Academy of Arts & Vienna, Kunstforum Wien, Tamara de Lempicka: Art Deco Icon, 2004-05, no. 43, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Boulogne-Billancourt, Musée des Années 30, Tamara de Lempicka, 2006, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Milan, Palazzo Reale, Tamara de Lempicka, 2006-07, no. 38, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Vigo, Fundación Caixa Galicia, Tamara de Lempicka, 2007

Tamara de Lempicka, Annotated Photographic Album, Archives Lempicka, Houston, 1923-33, no. 76

G.C., "Tamara de Lempicka," Cose, no. 92, March 1933, illustrated

Marc Vaux, Lempicka Collection, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, 1972, no. 76

Giancarlo Marmori, Tamara de Lempicka, The major works of Tamara de Lempicka 1925 to 1935, Milan, 1978, illustrated p. 38 (titled Portrait d'Arlette Boucard)

Françoise Gilot, "Tamara de Lempicka, mystérieuse et connue," Vogue, Paris, September 1980, illustrated

Germain Bazin & Hiroyuki Itsuki, Tamara de Lempicka, Tokyo, 1980, no. 50, illustrated in color (as dating from 1930)

Ellen Thormann, Tamara de Lempicka, Kunstkritik und Künstlerinnen in Paris, Berlin, 1993, no. 70

Gioia Mori, Tamara de Lempicka, Parigi 1920-1938, Florence, 1994, no. 71, illustrated in color p. 170 (as dating from 1930)

Alain Blondel, Tamara de Lempicka, Catalogue Raisonné 1921-1979, Lausanne, 1999, no. B.154, illustrated in color p. 247

Patrick Bade, Tamara de Lempicka, New York, 2006, illustrated in color p. 187

This work is in good condition. The board is stable, with two vertical hairline cracks visible in the front, and two visible on the reverse. There are thin lines of retouching covering the two surface cracks in the upper left and upper right corners, spots and lines of retouching in the area of the photograph and along some of the stems, and some other scattered spots of retouching visible under UV light. This work is in good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Lempicka's dynamic still life from 1931 features a portrait of Arlette Boucard, a young woman the artist portrayed as an adolescent in 1928.  Arlette was the daughter of Pierre Boucard, a renowned physician and one of the artist's most important patrons.  For this new composition, Lempicka pairs a photograph of the girl with a bouquet of arums or calla lilies, a dual symbol of purity and seduction and an allusion to Arlette's passage from the innocence of youth to the worldliness of womanhood.  Similar to the suggestive flower compositions that Georgia O'Keefe completed around the same time, Lempicka's flowers are an overt reference to the blossoming sexuality of the femme fatale in the photograph.

In his monograph on the artist, Patrick Bade has written the following analysis of this captivating picture: "The almost monochromatic Arlette Boucard with arums is a still life that displays several characteristic features of De Lempicka's art, such as her love of transparent and reflective surfaces and the highly eroticized forms of the lilies that reach up to the top edge of the canvas much as the spiralling figures do in her female portraits" (P. Bade, op. cit., p. 186).