Louis Valtat

Private Collection, France
Private Collection, Switzerland (acquired from the above)

Jean Valtat, Louis Valtat, Catalogue de l'oeuvre peint 1969-1952, vol. I, Neuchatel, 1977, no. 334, illustrated p. 38

The work is in very good condition. The canvas has not been lined. The colors are rich and lively and the impasto has been well preserved. A couple fine lines of stable cracking are visible within the bright red and orange pigments in the center of the canvas. Under UV light: certain pigments fluoresce including a light blue pigment that compliments the whites which fluoresces darkly. There may be a few very minor strokes of inpainting scattered in these areas. A thick layer of varnish is difficult to read through.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Best known for his resplendent landscapes and vivid flower compositions, Louis Valtat was to become a highly regarded painter of the Post-Impressionist period. Having absorbed the chief tenets of classical Impressionism and Pointillism in the 1890s, Valtat was both intrigued and influenced by contemporaries such as Matisse, Marquet, Camoin, Manguin, Vlaminck, Derain and Dufy, with whom he exhibited at the famous Salon d’Automne of 1905. 

The present work illustrates a profoundly personal scene, as it depicts Valtat’s young wife, Suzanne Nöel, amidst the private grounds of the couple’s garden at Anthéor. It is the perfect subject matter and setting for a meditation on the artist’s unique stylistic synthesis of form. As Raymond Cogniat contends, “The ambition of Impressionism was to express the maximum intensity of a moment in nature, and to suggest the rustle of foliage, the ripple of water and the ceaseless vibrations of light and shade. Something in [Valtat’s] temperament, however, impelled him towards a sense of permanence and profound stability. About 1895 he seems to have felt the urge to escape from the Impressionist formula in order to capture, not the transitory mood, but the more durable aspects of nature” (Raymond Cogniat, Louis Valtat, Paris, 1963, p. 25).

Around the turn of the twentieth century, Valtat and other avant-garde pioneers of Post-Impressionism began to experiment with their brushstrokes: “They laid on the pigment thickly in strokes that resembled vivid scars and which no longer had anything in common with the hatchings of Impressionism” (ibid, p. 23). Yet in spite of the artist’s heavy application of paint, the airy subject matter maintains integrity of its own thanks to the stunning proto-Fauvist potpourri of floral tones. As Sarah Whitfield notes, “Louis Valtat, whose color appears to float on the surface of the canvas, is another painter somewhat loosely bracketed with the Fauves. Both Valtat, who like Matisse was born in 1869, and Seyssaud, who was two years older, belonged to the generation of painters who understood the picture surface to be primarily a flat piece of canvas covered with areas of paint" (Sarah Whitfield, Fauvism, London, 1991, p. 28). These areas of paint were charged with evocative color in an attempt to enlighten the canvas and seduce the spectator. The present work is a poignant example, a stunning synthesis of simplicity of form and exuberant luminosity.