Paul Delvaux

Claude Spaak, Choisel (acquired from the artist)
Purchased from the above by the present owner in 1976

Paris, Galerie Arts & Contacts, Magritte, Delvaux, Gnoli dans la collection Claude Spaak, 1972, illustrated in the catalogue
Tokyo, Musée National d'Art Moderne & Kyoto, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paul Delvaux, 1975, no. 51, illustrated in the catalogue
Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique & Liège, Musée Saint-Georges, Hommage à Paul Delvaux, 1977, no. 84, illustrated in the catalogue
Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, 100 ans de Paul Delvaux, 1997, no. 192, illustrated in the catalogue
Bielefeld, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, The Secret of Women: Paul Delvaux and Surrealism, 2006-07

Victoria Thorson, Great Drawings of all Time: The Twentieth Century, New York, 1980, vol. II, no. 315, illustrated in colour

Executed on cream wove paper, not laid down, hinged to the overmount along the top edge. There is a 3cm. repaired tear running vertically down from the centre left of the top edge, a 2cm. vertical repaired tear to the centre left of the bottom edge, and a 3cm horizontal repaired tear to the panelling to the left of the base of the flower stand. There is minor paper-skinning along the edges of the verso and some light scattered foxing to the lighter areas of the sheet, mainly visible in the seated nude figure. Apart from a 4cm. flattened crease running across the upper right edge and some light medium-rubbing to the very periphery of the work, not visible when framed, this work is in good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate although the green of the plant at the upper left is slightly more subtle and the tone of the flooring is slighly warmer in the original.
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Femme au miroir is an exquisite masterpiece executed on 25th September 1948 in memory of Delvaux's iconic Le Miroir of 1936, which the artist believed had been destroyed during World War II. Delvaux's detailed rendering of a fragmented subject reflected concurrent preoccupations of the time. The eerie quietude that had settled upon Europe towards the end of the 1940s as the world waited for fresh troubles to appear on the horizon evoked a mood of unease in artists across the continent, poignantly translated into ethereal images by leading avant-garde artists such as Delvaux.

The present work, a reflection of the painting Delvaux thought had been for ever lost, exquisitely conveys Delvaux's ability to render the visual poetry of surrealist beauty. These elements are experienced by the viewer in the fragility and flawless complexion of the sitter, reminiscent of the figures depicted by Renaissance artists. Whilst Delvaux was famous for incorporating the style of the Renaissance in his pictures, in the present work it is the poetry and surrealism of the scene that is most striking.

Attired in a severe early 1900s-style robe, the sitter appears disturbingly silent and alone, emphasised by her stark, simplistic surroundings, creating a theatrical and timeless atmosphere dramatically offset by the unexplained presence of a nude in the reflection. The seated woman spreads her arms devotedly towards the reflection which in many ways resembles herself, although it seems that it is the nude in the looking glass who is contemplating her reflection. She is simultaneously confronted by and attracted to her reflection.

Throughout his œuvre, Delvaux liked to unite two figures and then juxtapose them as though conscious and unconscious are facing one another while at the same time paired harmoniously. In Femme au miroir, the two facing figures, dressed and nude, are attempting to embrace each other but are separated by the mirror, a symbol that appears so often in Delvaux's pictures. In the artist's dreamlike imagination, mirrors open doors to another world, a world more realistic than the previous. It is a form of second sight revealing more about the scene, as explained by Konrad Schreumann, 'For Delvaux, the mirror is a source of knowledge, a tool for revealing self awareness. The symbolism has often been used in Western painting where the mirror plays a role of allegories ... Whatever the individual message of each allegory, the mirror has the same function; it tells the truth, exposing vanity and human fragility' (quoted in Barbara Emerson, Delvaux, Antwerp, 1985, p. 69).

By using the mirror as a border between two different worlds and creating an undercurrent of psychological and sexual tension, Delvaux reveals his affiliation to Surrealism, although he never formally associated himself with this movement or its members. Magritte, an unconscious accomplice, had been experimenting for some time already with illusion using mirror images, as his La Reproduction interdite illustrates. Yet the very similarity of the two works serves to highlight the differences between Delvaux and his contemporaries. Whilst fellow Belgian Magritte, and artists such as Dalí and Miró favoured unambiguous psychoanalytic references in their compositions, Delvaux's approach to painting was more subtle and poetic in its representation of the mystical.

'Delvaux was not, like Magritte, a painter of ideas, but a painter of poetic emotions ... There is no need whatsoever of psychological analysis or psychoanalytical interpretations, which by the way the artist firmly rejected, to understand the world of Paul Delvaux. It is made of simplicity and reality. It is the blossoming and affirmation of poetry by means of the contrast that exists between the great monumental figures and the anachronistic settings in which they move. In this the artist agrees with the thinking of Breton who declared that the more the relationships between two realities were distant and exact, the more powerful the image would be. More than Delvaux the painter, it was Delvaux the surrealist poet' (Gisèle Ollinger-Zinque in Paul Delvaux, 1987-1994 (exhibition catalogue), Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, 1997, pp. 21 & 27).

Delvaux dedicated the present work to Pilette Spaak, daughter of Claude Spaak, at whose home in Choisel, France, the artist was staying at its time of execution.