Tamara de Lempicka

Private Collection, Italy (acquired in 1990. Sold: Sotheby's, New York, 3rd November 2005, lot 330)

Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

New York, Paul Reinhardt Galleries, Tamara de Lempicka, Paintings and Portraits, 1939, no. 5

New York, Julien Levy Gallery, Tamara de Lempicka, 1941, no. 3

Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Center, Tamara de Lempicka, 1942, no. 3

Rome, Académie de France (Villa Medici), Tamara de Lempicka, tra eleganza e trasgressione, 1994, no. 54, illustrated in the catalogue

Tokyo, Isetan Museum; Hiroshima, Museum of Fine Arts; Nagoya, Matsuzakaya & Osaka, Daimaru Museum, Tamara de Lempicka, 1997, no. 51, illustrated in the catalogue

Paris, La Pinacothèque de Paris, Tamara de Lempicka, la Reine de l’Art déco, 2013, no. 91, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Marc Vaux, Fonds Lempicka, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, 1972

Giancarlo Marmori, Tamara de Lempicka. Les œuvres majeures de Tamara de Lempicka 1925 à 1935, Paris, 1978, mentioned p. 7

Germaine Bazin & Hiroyuki Itsuki, Tamara de Lempicka, Tokyo, 1980, no. 86, illustrated pp. 147 & 239

Wolfgang Joop, Tamara de Lempicka, Träume von Mythen und Moden, Offenburg, 1987, mentioned p. 21

Alain Blondel, Lempicka Catalogue Raisonné 1921-1979, Lausanne, 1999, no. B.207, detail illustrated in colour p. 298; illustrated  in colour p. 299

The canvas is lined and has been placed on a metal mechanical stretcher. There is some drying craquelure consistent with the artist's technique. Apart from some small scattered retouchings, most notably on the left thigh of the figure, a few in the lower right corner and in the figure's hair, visible under ultra-violet light, this work is in good stable condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although less yellow in tone in the original.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Suzanne au bain, painted circa 1938, can be seen as among the most important works Lempicka produced during the 1930s. Alain Blondel wrote of the painting: ‘In 1938 she began producing abundantly, and was, moreover, spurred on by an upcoming show in New York. She intended this work as one of the highlights of her show [Tamara de Lempicka, Paintings and Portraits] at the Paul Reinhardt Gallery, scheduled for the beginning  of May 1939’ (A. Blondel, op. cit., p. 298). Lempicka had come to New York only a few months earlier and Suzanne au bain became a central part of her efforts to promote herself in the United States. The work had already graced the cover of the catalogue for the Reinhardt exhibition, and Lempicka now initiated a campaign – quickly picked up by American newspapers and magazines - to find a model resembling the woman who had sat for Suzanne and who she could work with in her newly adopted homeland (fig. 1).

Suzanne au bain takes as its subject the biblical story of Susanna and the Elders, in which Susanna is ambushed by two elders of her community whilst bathing. They threaten to report her for adultery unless she submits to them - but she bravely refuses. Arrested and condemned to death following their accusations, she is rescued by a young Daniel who challenges the elders and exposes them as liars. In Suzanne au bain Lempicka offers her own, very contemporary, interpretation of the story. Choosing not to show the two old men, she makes Suzanne the focus of the composition; her figure fills the canvas, with the only suggestion of narrative confined to the elegantly modelled folds of the cloth that she rests on. Although exuding a softer sensuality, Susanna shares the same strong features and sculptural arabesques that characterise Lempicka’s celebrated nudes of the 1920s (fig. 3). This distinctly modern handling allows Lempicka to place the emphasis on the heroic female element of the story, transforming the painting into both a celebration of the female body and a tale for the modern age.

Susanna and the Elders was a common subject during the Renaissance (fig. 2) and is one of a number of biblical subjects that Lempicka painted during the late 1930s that reflect an increasing interest in Renaissance models. Lempicka might have been influenced in this by her marriage in 1933 to Baron Kuffner de Dioszegh who had inherited a large collection of Italian and Flemish Old Masters, but the masters of the past had been a source of inspiration throughout her career. Ingried Brugger writes: ‘De Lempicka’s ideal of the human form was perhaps less influenced by Ingres… than by the artists of the high and later Renaissance. The hypertrophied bodily forms of Michelangelo were a rich source of ideas for her. Ingres’ canon of arrested affects, his timeless poses and the shimmering surfaces of his paintings did, nevertheless, leave an unmistakeable mark on De Lempicka’s work. And the productive interplay in her paintings between Ingres and the plastic excess of the faces, figures and draped fabrics of the Renaissance led to a constant toing and froing of stasis and motion, inertia and vitality’ (I. Brugger in Tamara de Lempicka. Art Deco Icon (exhibition catalogue), Royal Academy of Arts London, 2004, p. 32).