Jean Joseph Benjamin-Constant

Private Collector, Detroit
Acquired from the above in 1965

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting has been restored quite recently and could be hung in its current condition. Throughout most of the picture the condition is extremely good. The paint layer is not abraded and has received hardly any retouches. The only retouches of any note are in the sky in the upper right, where there is a break in the canvas that runs about seven inches horizontally. This is between the seated figures' head and the top of the picture. Above the same female's head there is an area of paint which may be an older restoration, since it does show darkly under ultraviolet light and the color is out of context with the rest of the painting. Very often in pictures like this there are pentiments which develop as a result of the artist changing the composition. These pentiments are visible here in the center of the sky and it may be this kind of disturbance which was retouched in this one area. Nonetheless the painting is in lovely state.
"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."

Early in the 1870s, Benjamin Constant arrived in the Moroccan coastal city of Tangier.  Accompanying him were Georges Clairin (1843-1919) and Henri Regnault (1843-1871), both painters, and Charles Joseph Tissot, a prominent French diplomat.  Clairin and Tissot soon left the famed "White City," bound for Fez and Marrakesh; Constant would remain for eighteen months.

While in Tangier, Constant gathered an impressive collection of artifacts and souvenirs, which, together with his sketches of the local culture, would find their way into the compositions he produced and exhibited upon his return to Paris in 1873.  Scenes of life in Morocco now dominated his oeuvre, replacing the history paintings of his youth.  But it was not ethnography that the artist intended, nor confirmation of his travels: In 1879, Constant exhibited Le soir sur les terrasses, Maroc (fig. 1), one of a series of pictures in which languorous women, poised on a rooftop, appear as in a dream.  It is this - purely imaginary - North African world of which Twilight Hours is a part.

The impossibility of Constant's subject is borne out by the details of the composition, and by the realities of Muslim life. A stranger in Morocco, Constant would have had limited access to female models, and even less to the domestic spaces in which they gathered. (The tenets of Muslim society prescribe that women be protected from others' gazes, both architecturally, through the institution of the harem, and sartorially, through the wearing of the veil.  Though Constant would certainly have had access to private homes in Tangier, and to rooftop balconies, he would never have been allowed to witness such a scene as this.)  The pale countenances of Constant's women contradict their foreign setting, they are, in fact, Parisian models, hired for the day.¹ The silk robe of the woman in the foreground helps reveal the lie: the gold and black damask pattern is reminiscent of exotic Turkish fabrics - as well as tiger stripes - but the shape of the garment relates it more directly to the "aesthetic dress" that was increasingly in vogue.²  A rug from the artist's own, overstuffed studio has been spread upon the floor.  Atop it sits an incense burner, a token of past travels.

The conflation of authentic objects, clever fictions, and studio dreams in Constant's rooftop scenes proved irresistible to late nineteenth-century audiences.³ (Indeed, by 1900, Le soir sur les terrasses, Maroc had become Constant's most frequently reproduced work.)  In 1896, fatigued by the exhaustive detail and moralistic glosses of others' Orientalist offerings, Gustave Larroumet explained the works' appeal: "In Delacroix there is only history fixed by a few strokes of genius, in Benjamin-Constant there is drama and opera," ("Benjamin-Constant," Le Figaro, 18 June 1896).  In the present work, the "drama" and the "opera" is everywhere at hand, from the freedom of the brushstroke to the sonority of color, and from the robustness of the figures to their poetic grace. Constant's theatricality extends even to the size of Twilight Hours: Its ambitious dimensions are reminiscent of the grandes machines with which he made his name. (Constant's history paintings, submitted to the Paris Salon from 1869 and the recipients of multiple awards, were vast canvases, perfectly suited to the national collections in which they often found a home.)  Later, Constant would scale down his compositions in order to meet collectors' needs. Twilight Hours, as expansive as its rooftop view, suffered no such fate.

This catalogue note was written by Dr. Emily M. Weeks.

¹ The figure of the Nubian servant, sphinx-like in her garb, may also be based on a hired model, rather than a sketch; Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) often commented on the ready availability of ethnic types in Paris. 
² In reaction to the heavy drapery and rigid corseting that late nineteenth-century Parisian fashion demanded, some women chose to adopt the loosely fitted fabrics of "artistic" or "aesthetic" dress.  These garments, beautifully colored and often belted at the waist, were made available in France at Liberty's Paris shop.  Constant's delight in the pattern of this particular piece, and his skill with color, anticipates his later acclaim as a decorative artist: after 1880, Constant embarked on a series of murals, including several for the Sorbonne.
³ The appeal of such subjects may be gauged by the number of artists who engaged in them: Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) and Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1847-1928) are just two of many who found great success with their images of vaguely Middle Eastern women luxuriating on decorative balconies, without purpose or concern.

Please note this work has been requested for the Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant retrospective exhibition scheduled for 2015 and organized by The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts jointly with the Augustins Museum, Toulouse.