Lot 35
  • 35

Jean Béraud

Estimate
500,000 - 700,000 USD
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Description

  • Jean Béraud
  • La Conversation
  • signed Jean Béraud (lower right)
  • oil on canvas
  • 22 by 15 1/2 in.
  • 55.9 by 39.3 cm

Provenance

Sale: Galerie Charpentier, Paris, June 15, 1954, lot 4, illustrated

Literature

Patrick Offenstadt, Jean Béraud 1849-1935, The Belle Époque: A Dream of Times Gone By, catalogue raisonné, Cologne, 1999, p. 182, no. 201, illustrated

Condition

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work is in beautiful condition. The canvas is unlined. Very faint stretcher marks are visible, but lining the canvas is certainly not necessary. The paint layer is clean. A handful of tiny dots of retouching have been added to the dark suit of the gentleman. The work should be hung as is.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Catalogue Note

Whether promenading on the grand boulevards or the banks of the Seine, in carriages in the Bois de Boulogne, or in private, intimate spaces as in the present work, it is the endless parade of characters who animate Jean Béraud’s splendid and idiosyncratic vision of Paris, and bring it to life. His affection for Parisians granted him notoriety and popularity; Marcel Proust described him as "a charming creature, sought in vain, by every social circle" and he was alleged to be a perfect gentleman, impeccably dressed and above trends and fashion (as quoted in Offenstadt, p. 7). He was intrigued by all aspects of la vie parisienne, and was one of its most scrupulous and devoted observers. He once wrote to fellow artist Alfred Roll "I find everything but Paris wearisome" (as quoted in Offenstadt, p. 14).

Abandoning his previous ambitions to become a lawyer, Jean Béraud joined Parisian artistic circles and studied portraiture with Léon Bonnat, a leading artist of the Third Republic. Many of Béraud's well-known contemporaries also passed through Bonnat's studio, including Gustave Caillebotte, Alfred Roll and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. While Béraud initially emulated his master's choice of subject and painted portraits of women and children as well as genre scenes, he was quickly drawn to representing modern urban life and developed his own inimitable style.

The opulent spectacle of the newly created public spaces of Paris became Béraud's choice subjects, including the city’s interior spaces of Paris, such as cafés, ballrooms (see lot 46), theaters (see lot 47), casinos and, rarely, private apartments. Like many of his Impressionist contemporaries, Béraud was interested in the increasingly blurred boundaries of public and private in the city and the balcony had become emblematic of this shift. A ubiquitous architectural feature of the apartments in Haussmann’s Paris, the balcony was an extension of the home as well as a connection to the street, and was thus an indeterminate, simultaneously private and public space (David Van Zanten, “Looking Through, Across and Up, The architectural aesthetics of the Paris Street,” Impressionism, Fashion, Modernity, exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum, New York, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, 2012, p. 154-8). This ambiguous space became a potent device for artists to explore, a most notable example being Édouard Manet’s Le Balcon (1868-9, Musée d’Orsay, Paris) in which he depicts the artist Berthe Morisot and violinist Fanny Claus looking out from a balcony; while Morisot wears relaxed dress with pagoda sleeves suggesting an intimate gathering, Fanny Claus, with her gloves and parasol, is dressed to be out walking. Similarly, Gustave Caillebotte’s Interior, also called Interior, Woman at a Window (1880, Private Collection, fig. 1) depicts a woman dressed for a promenade and turned away from the viewer, looking through the closed door of her balcony towards the shop names and advertisements of the street. In La Conversation, with the balcony doors flung open, Béraud deliberately brings the humming street scene outside into the apartment. Carriages and café tables, lit by many streetlamps and lanterns, seem to be as integral to the scene as the lamps on the console table. In the neighboring apartments beyond, windows are illuminated to suggest figures inside sharing similar moments.

La Conversation takes place in a well-appointed interior, furnished with white painted chairs in the Louis XVI style, a rococo carved gilt wood console table and mirror in the Louis XV style (in which the woman is beautifully reflected). The walls appear to be part of a Louis XV carved, parcel-gilt and white-painted boiserie, similar to the salon ovale de la princesse at the Hôtel de Soubise in Paris. The couple are in evening costume, either having just returned from a ball or party, or about to go to one. Béraud is a master of subtle gestures and he has carefully rendered them here. With his hands grasping the back of the chair with intention, the man tilts back, somewhat awkwardly, perhaps in nervous anticipation. He cranes his head forward as if awaiting a response to his proposition as his companion looks down introspectively. Standing in her extraordinary cornflower blue gown, with a low bustle silhouette, wasp waist, peplum with basques and flounces on her skirt, the position of her hands holding an open fan may reveal a clue to her response.