KEES VAN DONGEN | Loulou

Mme Perruchot, Blois
Private Collection, France
Sale: Hôtel Drouot, Guy Loudmer, Paris, May 24, 1992, lot 67
Acquired at the above sale

Édouard des Courières, Van Dongen, Paris, 1925, illustrated pl. 37

The canvas has been lined. There is scattered hairline craquelure and pigment shrinkage throughout the surface. There is some very minor frame abrasion to the top and bottom edges, with associated minor losses. Under UV inspection, the aforementioned frame abrasion along the bottom edge has been retouched. There are three other nailhead sized spots of retouching in the background to the right of the figure's face, at the level of her nose. The work is in good condition.
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.

As a chronicle of his times, van Dongen’s portraits of French society from the 1910s to the 1940s are of undeniable importance.  Despite or perhaps because of the explicitly sexual nature of his early work and reputation for courting controversy, in the 1920s his images of gamine young women came to symbolize all that was fashionable. To have one’s portrait painted by the notorious Dutchman became a coveted status symbol. "He was a frequent visitor to Deauville, where the smart world gathered, and to the cabarets and restaurants of Paris” (Denys Sutton in Cornelius Theodorus Marie Van Dongen (exhibition catalogue), University of Arizona Museum of Art Tucson, 1971, p. 46). His name was synonymous with celebrity.

But his psychological observations of women from the so-called "cocktail crowd" of the period are often framed simply in terms of a pitiless, caustic and sardonic critique. As one critic put it “van Dongen was the Juvenal of the age, not the Sargent” (Stuart Preston “Kees van Dongen, Paris,” in The Burlington Magazine, vol. 132, no. 1047, 1990, p. 429). The artist's typical caricature is one of an elegant, androgynous woman dripping with pearls, “...a cigarette holder thirty centimeters long protrudes from lips painted a bloody purple; her cheeks are coated with powder, a blue-tinged halo encircles her eyes. With his cruel brush, van Dongen captures this androgynous figure for posterity” (Jacques Chastenet, Quand le boeuf montait sur le toit, Paris, 1958, pp. 124-25).

With Loulou however, the caricature does not apply: androgynous and flapper-like certainly, but although apparently nude she is hardly indecent or coquettish. Unlike other bare-shouldered models of his, she does not even wear a necklace. Far from being cruel, this is a tender if melancholy portrait in which the status of the sitter does not distract from van Dongen’s extraordinary gift for color that was so apparent when he first emerged as an artist. The bold palette restates his ability to break down “the harmonies of the rosy skin, in which he discovers acid greens, orange reds, phosphorous yellows, vinous lilac, electric blues” (Exposition Van Dongen (exhibition catalogue), Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, 1908, n.p.). 

This work will be included in the forthcoming van Dongen Digital Catalogue Raisonné, currently being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.