Bernard Boutet de Monvel

Private collection, Great Britain;

With Saint-Honoré Art Consulting, Paris, September 2012.

S.-J. Addade, Bernard Boutet de Monvel, Paris 2016, p. 282, repr.

Painted circa 1930, the painting is striking for the space devoted to the imposing parasol, whose spherical canopy envelops Barbara Marshall Field. The diagonal of the handle, a structuring and dynamic line of force, divides the composition into two equal triangles. Boutet de Monvel’s constant pursuit of geometric simplification is particularly pronounced here. The girl’s profile is contained within a triangle, while her hair forms a circle. The legs and right arm are striking for their tubular forms. The visible preparatory drawing and the unfinished left foot, precisely outlined but left unpainted, clearly reveal the artist’s strongly defined contours.

The child and the parasol form a large oval occupying most of the canvas, leaving limited space for decorative elements: the green lawn and the daisy bush, drawn with a compass, provide touches of color and freshness. To somewhat soften the linear rigor of this portrait of a young girl with an unmistakable childlike grace, Boutet de Monvel emphasizes circular forms that echo the roundness of her face. The restrained palette, in pale beige tinged with pink nuances, lends delicacy to the complexion, which is illuminated by the pure white of the dress.

Stylistically, the portrait differs little from those painted in the late 1920s, when the artist focused primarily on architectural construction. However, the face is painted with a finesse and precision that anticipate the manner of his portraits from the mid-1930s. In this respect, comparison with the portrait of Master Adrian P. Reed is revealing. Painted eight years later, it adopts the same composition almost exactly. The structure has lost none of its clarity, but the technique has evolved significantly, reaching a remarkable level of technical perfection, approaching photographic realism (see S.-J. Addade, 2016, op. cit., p. 283).

The originality of the composition, the solidity of its structure—which nonetheless preserves the childlike charm of the sitter—and the pronounced visibility of the preparatory drawing make the Portrait of Barbara Marshall Field one of the most interesting works in the series of American children’s portraits painted by Boutet de Monvel from 1927–1928 onward.

Two preparatory drawings are known, both showing the sitter’s face in profile. One, dated 1930, was offered in the sale of the Boutet de Monvel Collection at Sotheby’s in Paris on 5–6 April 2016 (part of lot 246). The other is reproduced in the Boutet de Monvel exhibition catalogue at the Barry Friedman Gallery, New York (1994–95, no. 46).

Barbara Marshall Field (1918–1984) came from the highly influential and wealthy Marshall Field dynasty, a prominent Chicago family known for founding the eponymous department-store chain, Marshall Field & Company. The year after her debutante ball in 1936, she married Anthony Addison Bliss, a future prominent lawyer and General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, from whom she later divorced after the birth of their daughter. She remarried in 1942 to Dr. Robert Kenneth Boggs, with whom she had two daughters, and then, in 1961, to George Peter Benzinger.