Lot 171
  • 171

LOUIS VALTAT | Portrait de Madame Valtat

Estimate
200,000 - 300,000 USD
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Description

  • Louis Valtat
  • Portrait de Madame Valtat
  • Signed L. Valtat (lower right)
  • Oil on canvas
  • 39 3/8 by 31 7/8 in.
  • 100 by 81 cm
  • Painted circa 1904.

Provenance

Ambroise Vollard, Paris
Galerie Beyeler, Basel
Mlle Bertagnac, Paris
Acquired from the above in 1959

Exhibited

Geneva, Musée de l'Athénée, De l'Impressionisme à l'École de Paris, 1960, no. 93
Geneva, Musée de l'Athénée, Rétrospective Valtat, 1962, no. 54
Geneva, Musée du Petit Palais, Louis Valtat Rétrospective Centenaire, 1969, n.n., illustrated on the cover
Lausanne, Fondation de l'Hermitage, De Cézanne à Picasso dans les collections romandes, 1985, no. 64
Geneva, Musée de Petit Palais, De Matisse à Kandisnky, 1993-94, n.n.
Bordeaux, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Exposition L. Valtat, 1995, no. 58
London, Tate Gallery, New Displays, 1996, n.n. 

Literature

Jean Valtat, Louis Valtat, Catalogue de l'oeuvre peint, vol. I, Paris, 1977, no. 465, illustrated p. 54

Condition

Please contact the Impressionist & Modern Art department directly for a condition report of this lot.
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.

Catalogue Note

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 the work of his burgeoning Fauve 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 Valtat’s beautiful young wife, Suzanne Nöel, posing confidently. Depicted in immaculate white with shock of orange fur draped around her neck, the present work not only demonstrates Valtat’s love for Suzanne but also his mastery of the nascent Fauve aesthetic. After 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” (Raymond Cogniat, Louis Valtat, Paris, 1963, 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 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 enliven the canvas and seduce the spectator. The present work is a poignant example, a stunning synthesis of simplicity of form and exuberant luminosity.