Leo Gestel (1881-1941)

In 1910 Leo Gestel travels for the second time to Paris and again he is overwhelmed with all the new ideas and impressions. This time around he is especially interested in the world of the beau monde. In these years we see in the work of Gestel a lot of anecdotical subjects, depicting the beau monde. Gestel shows people leaving the theater, ladies dressing up to go out or ladies in their boudoir. With very strong and expressive strokes Gestel depicts his models as well in oil as in pastel.

Chatting ladies is a very good example of this period. In this work we see two chatting ladies, sitting in a richly decorated boudoir, wearing very mondian dresses. The two ladies show very strongly their mondain life-style. The model who Gestel used for this pastel is probably his wife An Overtoom who he had met in 1910. An Overtoom is depicted in the pastel Flirtation, dated ca. 1910 and compared with this pastel there are very strong similarities (Marijke Estourgie, Leo Gestel, Schilder en tekenaar, Laren 1993, p.28, illustraton of Flirtation).