Ignacio Zuloaga

Estate of the artist; thence by descent to the present owner

Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes; Paris, Pavillion des Arts; Dallas, Meadows Museum; New York, Wildenstein Gallery; Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional: Ignacio Zuloaga (1870-1945), 1991, n.n., illustrated in the catalogue

Enrique Lafuente Ferrari, The Life and Work of Ignacio Zuloaga, Barcelona, 1991, p. 516, no. 476, catalogued; pl. 37, illustrated

The following condition report has been prepared by Hamish Dewar Ltd., of 13 & 14 Mason's Yard, London SW1Y 6BU. UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural Condition The canvas is unlined and is securely attached to its original keyed wooden stretcher. This is ensuring an even and stable structural support. Paint surface The painting has a relatively even varnish layer. There are two very faint stretcher bar lines corresponding to the central horizontal stretcher bar and some minor craquelure below the figure's right arm and within the figure's chest. These appear stable and are not particularly visually distracting. A fine web-like pattern of drying cracks are visible within the green drapery and the sitter's feet which also appear stable. There are several small marks that appear within the varnish which are mainly concentrated in the upper left quadrant of the composition. Inspection under ultraviolet light shows scattered retouchings, the most significant of which are: 1) a pattern of carefully applied retouchings corresponding to the drying cracks in the green drapery mainly concentrated below the figure and around her feet, 2) small carefully applied retouchings within the figure's legs and chest, and 3) several small scattered retouchings to the background. There is an area of unusual fluorescence running vertically from the top of the sitter's right foot which may be previous restoration or possibly due to the artist's materials and techniques. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in very good and stable condition and would benefit from surface cleaning and revarnishing.
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Painted in 1921, Zuloaga's gloriously brazen depiction of Marcelle Souty reclining in the artist's Paris studio is one of his most audacious portraits, and arguably his greatest painting of the nude.

The work is a remarkable culmination of a series of large scale oils of the sitter that Zuloaga painted over a seven year period. With but a red 'fascinator' clipped jauntily to the top of her head, and a lace mantilla draped languorously over her right shoulder and upper arm, Mme Souty poses decorously naked on a rich green drape as she gazes out to the viewer's right, her half-smile and unflinching stare expressing an enigmatic air of cool indifference. The studio props that surround the model evoke a culture and inheritance for Zuloaga that go back centuries: an eighteenth century tapestry acts as a backdrop; part pulled back, behind the tapestry are glimpsed photographs of works by El Greco and Velázquez. The candour of Souty's pose however, her implicit decadence mirrored in the louche sag of the green sofa covering, evokes a modernity utterly in keeping with the brave new world and social order that emerged in the immediate aftermath of the First World War.

Introduced to Souty by his friend the painter Jean-Gabriel Domergue and immediately attracted to her distinctive and sophisticated elegance, Zuloaga completed at least five large scale finished portraits of her clothed before embarking on the present study of her nude (Ferrari, nos. 386, 399, 400, 426 & 427). In the first of these compositions Souty modeled as a torero. With her left hand on her hip, and in her right the bullfighter's montera she sports the typical knee length suit (traje de luces), with the cape (capote) over her arm. The following year in 1915 he painted her again wearing a traditional Spanish dress, but this time emphasised her girlish good looks as she lounges on the studio sofa, engaging the viewer with her innocent eyes. The subsequent three major oils he painted of Souty are likewise all of her fully dressed, one of her standing with red flowers; one sitting holding a carnation, and one wearing black.

Up until Mme Souty sat for him, the model that Zuloaga painted most frequently was his cousin Cándida in Segovia who sat for Zuloaga repeatedly from the late 1890s onwards. But with the purchase of his studio in Montmartre in 1906 Zuloaga could be more detached, have the freedom to employ a professional model when in Paris, and reasonably request such models to pose for him déshabillée. In developing the style appropriate to the genre Zuloaga looked first to the French tradition. Thus the subject of one of his earliest Parisian nudes is Gitana desnuda con papagayo (Gypsy Nude, with Parrot) of 1906, a theme that he repeated in reclining form in 1913 in La dama del papagayo (Lady with a Parrot). The exotic flavour of both works owes a clear debt to earlier examples by Gustave Courbet and Edouard Manet, and it was surely Manet's notorious Olympia that Zuloaga must have had in mind when he painted the present work. Marcelle Souty's languid reclining position, however, also acknowledges Zuloaga's fascination with the work of Francisco Goya, and the Spanish master's Maja paintings in particular. Zuloaga kept a large copy of La maja vestida in his studio, and was instrumental in saving Goya's natal home at Fuendetodos for the nation, where he also oversaw the raising of a monument to his hero.

The influence of such painterly antecedents on Zuloaga's artistic development, both ancient and modern, mirrored the ever greater sophistication required of him to succeed as a portraitist, his talents for which were in huge demand. One of his most prestigious pre-War commissions was to paint the portrait of the leading Parisian society hostess and literary figure the Comtesse de Noailles, a work of consummate elegance, authority and simmering sexuality. As well as sharing a striking sensuality with that of Mme Souty, the pose of the Comtesse clothed bears a notable resemblance to that of Mme Souty naked. Both recline gracefully propped up on their left side, their right arms following the line of their bodies, their left leg straight while that of their right is bent. In the absence of Zuloaga being able to paint the Comtesse naked, it is tempting indeed to think that - consciously or not - Zuloaga may well have conceived the present work of Marcelle Souty as his 'Maja desnuda' to the Countess's 'Maja vestida'. 

Zuloaga himself was keenly aware of the potential furore that his nudes elicited from the public, to the extent that he was notably coy about exhibiting them. Very few were shown in Europe, and when he did first exhibit two of them in the major travelling exhibtion of his work that toured America in 1916-17 they brought forth protesting letters from those who found it was impossible to see them without blushing. It is notable that the present work was never exhibited in public during Zuloaga's lifetime, remaining with his own collection, a fact that certainly reflects on Zuloaga's own assessment of the work, conscious of the controversy it could stir up.

The freedom Zuloaga felt to explore such new subject matter in Paris was inextricably tied to his long associations with France, the liberty he experienced in the French capital in particular, and the accolades for his work that he received there. As a school boy he had spent time at the lycée at Neuilly, before returning to Paris in 1890 to pursue his studies as an artist. He first took lessons from Henri Gervex and Eugène Carrière, and frequented the Académie de la palette in Clichy, where he met other Spanish painters, amongst them his future lifelong friends: Catalan Santiago Rusiñol and fellow Basque Pablo Uranga. Thereafter he divided his time between Paris and Spain, always keeping an eye on what was happening in the French capital.

In his early years he frequented the Café Voltaire where he met Paul Gauguin and showed his work at Le Barc de Bouteville on Rue Le Pelletier, exhibiting alongside Gauguin, Van Gogh and Emile Bernard. Between 1892-94 he shared rooms with Rusiñol and Uranga at the Quai Bourbon on the Île de la Cité, where amongst others they entertained Edgar Degas. In 1895 he exhibited six works at Le Barc de Bouteville, for which he received notably encouraging reviews in the Paris press; likewise at the Salon du Champ de Mars in 1897 he was lauded by a coterie of French critics, amongst them Arsène Alexandre and Gustave Geoffroy. The following year he was honoured by the French state, the government buying My Uncle and My Cousins that he showed at the 1898 Salon. Zuloaga's love affair with France continued when in 1899 he married Valentine Dethomas. Valentine was the sister of his friend Maxime Dethomas, a fellow student at the Académie de la Palette in Paris, and the daughter of a high ranking and well known French politician.

Married to his advantage, and with burgeoning critical acclaim for his work, the new century saw Zuloaga's reputation go from strength to strength both within France and internationally. In group exhibitions in Paris his work was exhibited alongside that of Degas, Van Gogh, Bonnard, Toulouse-Lautrec, Rodin and Vuillard; in 1902 he exhibited at the prestigious Galerie Georges Petit, and at the Paris Salon of 1903 the three works that he submitted were hailed by the critics as the 'clou'  of the exhibition. One enthusiastic writer commented of the sensation that his work was causing: 'On parle que de lui [Zuloaga]'; and Le Figaro illustré devoted an entire issue to Zuloaga's work. By 1908 Zuloaga's reputation was such that he commanded a room to himself at the Salon d'automne.

As his star rose in Paris, so his international sphere of influence grew too. In 1900 he exhibited with La Libre Esthétique in Brussels, and his painting Víspera de la Corrida (The Eve of the Bullfight) was purchased by the Belgian government. He also exhibted that year in Berlin, Düsseldorf and Cologne. In 1901 he sent seven pictures to Dresden for exhibition. Awarded a gold medal for his contribution, his work was seen there by Rilke, an event that precipitated their life-long friendship. Zuloaga exhibited nine pictures at the Venice Biennale in 1903 and in Düsseldorf in 1904 Zuloaga, with Auguste Rodin and Adolf von Menzel were the only artists to be allotted dedicated galleries to show in, the space facilitating Zuloaga to show twenty of his pictures. In 1905 Zuloaga took Rodin on a sightseeing tour of Spain in his car, and during the year sent his work for exhibition in Prague, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Liège, Venice, Dresden and Vienna; he also designed sets for the Berlin opera's performance of Carmen. By the end of the decade Zuloaga's work had reached the Americas. In 1909 fifty of his works were exhibited at the Hispanic Society in New York, the exhibition then travelling to Buffalo and Boston. The following year his work was exhibited in Mexico, Chile and Argentina.

Zuloaga's purchase in 1906 of his first permanent studio at 54 rue Caulaincourt in Montmartre cemented his allegiance to his adopted country and his belief that his future lay in Paris. In contrast his association with Spain was more ambiguous, his ties not so much to the country as a whole but to his family and his Basque roots. The reception to his work in the 1890s in Spain was mixed, and for several years Zuloaga refused to show his work there. When he was not in Paris, Zuloaga preferred a more provincial life, sharing a studio in Segovia with his uncle Daniel and fraternising with his cousins, painting in Seville, or returning to see his family in Eibar over any attractions that might be found in Madrid. But as his reputation grew abroad, so he was increasingly fêted by his fellow countrymen, and attracted back to the capital.

In 1904 a banquet was hosted in his honour in Madrid, the event supported by many of the writers and intellectuals who comprised the 'Generation of 98', including Azorín, Marquina, Rusiñol and Maeztu. In 1907 Miquel Utrillo organised the exhibition of 31 of Zuloaga's pictures in Barcelona. The largest showing of his works thus far in Spain, the works received wide spread critical acclaim. Fulfilling his desire to re-establish himself and his family in the Basque country, in 1910 Zuloaga purchased the spit of land by the sea at Zumaya, along the coast from Bilbao. There he built his country house, studio, chapel and the museum to house his collection. Two years later in Bilbao a banquet was held in his honour at which there were 800 guests. 

In the years that followed Zuloaga was in ever increasing demand as a portraitist, vying with the finest society painters of his generation, amongst them Kees Van Dongen, John Singer Sargent, Anders Zorn, and Giovanni Boldini, working on both sides of the Atlantic. But for all that he was taken up by Society, Zuloaga continued to pursue his particular interests in recording Spain - its landscape, people and types - and painting works for the pure pleasure of it, as in the present example. The painter's enduring legacy is celebrated in the current focus on Spanish painting in the exhibition Spain between 2 centuries from Zuloaga to Picasso (1890-1920) at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.