Bernard Boutet de Monvel

Collection Yves Plantin, Galerie du Luxembourg;

His sale, Art Auction France, Paris, 23 November 2015, lot 492.

Highly original, the portrait depicts the profile of a young woman whose face is partly concealed by a hat, a variation on the famous cloche hat, here enhanced by a projecting brim. The almost square canvas is highly structured by geometric lines: the diagonals of the back, neck, and face lead toward the circles and semicircles of the hat, which occupies the upper half of the canvas. This modern, streamlined accessory, a semicircle enveloping the head, could only have appealed to Boutet de Monvel, who gives it a prominent place here. Its simplicity is echoed in that of the composition: there are no superfluous accessories; the veil, made up of small segments of airy lightness, is barely visible, while the curls of hair emerging from beneath the hat seem almost to serve as a support designed to emphasize it. Only the double strand of pearls, reminiscent of a delicate lace ruff, adds a discreet decorative touch to the otherwise swiftly rendered attire. Warm ochre and brown tones stand out against a pale blue background, colors that somewhat soften the austerity of the portrait of this mysterious young woman, with her unseen gaze, slender neck, and graceful profile.

Bernard Boutet de Monvel, a man of impeccable elegance and an illustrator for fashion magazines—including Gazette du Bon Ton, Vogue, and Harper’s Bazaar, to name but a few (see lots 312 and 313)—closely followed the rapid evolution of fashion. After the First World War, women’s gradual emancipation and liberation profoundly transformed their wardrobes, introducing loose and comfortable garments suited to modern life. The cloche hat, created in Paris a few years before the war, had the advantage of revealing the nape of the neck and was particularly well suited to short, “à la garçonne” hairstyles. Simple, contemporary, and comfortable to wear, it appealed to women of every social background and enjoyed immense success in France and abroad throughout the 1920s and beyond.

In 1936, Boutet de Monvel depicted another woman, Mrs. Vadim S. Makaroff, her face concealed by the brim of a cloche hat, but he enclosed the figure within a circle. She therefore cannot be the model in the present portrait (see Stéphane-Jacques Addade, Bernard Boutet de Monvel, Paris 2016, p. 286).