基斯·凡·唐金

Galerie Kahnweiler, Paris 

Private Collection, Europe (acquired in 1980 and sold: Sotheby's, London, June 19, 2007, lot 14)

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

St. Tropez, Musée de l'Annonciade & Toulouse, Réfectoire des Jacobins, Kees van Dongen, 1985, no. 11, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Monaco, Nouveau Musée National; Montreal, Musée des Beaux-Arts & Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Kees van Dongen, 2008-09, no. 142, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Kees van Dongen (exhibition catalogue), Museu Picasso, Barcelona, 2009, illustrated in color p. 150

All Eyes on Kees van Dongen (exhibition catalogue), Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 2010-11, illustrated in color p. 90 

Van Dongen. Fauve, anarchiste et mondain (exhibition catalogue), Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, 2011, illustrated in color p. 106

Original canvas. Under UV light, there is no evidence of retouching. Apart from some minor stable craquelure in the heavily painted areas, this work is in very good original 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.

Painted several years after van Dongen's seminal exhibition with the Fauves at the Salon d’Automne in 1905, Nu à la chaise is a fine example of the artist’s striking and sensual female portraits. This elegant, atmospheric depiction of a seated nude dates from the most important period in van Dongen's production, when he introduced some of his great models, such as ‘Anita la Bohémienne’ (fig. 1), ‘Nini des Folies-Bergères’ (fig. 2), ‘Fernande’ and ‘La Belle Fatima’;  unlike the French Fauve painters, who depicted the sunlit coast of southern France, van Dongen found inspiration in city life. It was the Parisian night-life and the artificial lights of the circus and concert-halls, rather than nature and open spaces, that excited him. Although the identity of the woman in the present work is not known, she is likely to have been one of the dancers or performers whom he painted during the rehearsals, or who occasionally modelled for the artist in his studio.

In 1908, van Dongen had successful one-man exhibitions both at Galerie Kahnweiler and Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris. In the autumn of that year, the artist moved to a new studio and the flat at 6 rue Saulnier in the 9^th arrondissement (fig. 3), around the corner from the famous cabaret music-hall, the Folies-Bergère. Writing about van Dongen’s works from this period, Anita Hopmans wrote: "It is clear … that in or around the year 1909 van Dongen was changing and renewing his subject matter. Living right next door to the Folies-Bergère brought him into close contact with the world of shows, revues, dance and special acts. This theatre was known for its lavish productions and its use of advanced technology to achieve multi-coloured stage lighting. The colour and brilliance of this light is also seen in van Dongen’s portraits" (Anita Hopmans in All Eyes on Kees van Dongen (exhibition catalogue), op. cit., p. 90).

Louis Vauxcelles, the influential French art critic, proclaimed van Dongen as "the historian of girls of the streets, of the dregs, of all the rabble of corrupt females and their crapulous pimps" (quoted in Gaston Diehl, Van Dongen, Milan, n.d., p. 87) and behind the air of sensuous decadence that pervades this work is a streak of Dutch realism that remained ever present in his work. While the sulfurous yellows and lurid greens which were to become hallmarks of his mature work are more muted at this early stage, his nudes already exude the troubling sensuality which became more overt in his later work. In his prologue to his December 1911 exhibition, van Dongen asserted that "a certain immodesty is truly a virtue, as is the absence of respect for many respectable things" (ibid., p. 87), and this work is underpinned by a strange combination of Baudelairism and naïveté that captures both the exotic and the sordid nature of the bohemian world he inhabited.

The first owner of Nu à la chaise was the legendary Parisian dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Although Kanhweiler is primarily known for his support of the Cubist artists including Picasso, Braque and Gris, in the period between 1907 and 1913 he appears to have acquired around 140 or so works by van Dongen. On visiting his gallery in 1909, the writer and critic Jacques Rivière wrote in a letter to the painter André Lhote: "Stunning Van Dongens at Kahnweiler’s" (quoted in ibid., p. 91). According to Anita Hopmans, the Parisian public did not get much of a chance to see van Dongen’s paintings of this period, as they were rarely shown at the Salons, and Kahnweiler often sent them to international exhibitions and eventually sold them to collectors outside of France. More recently, Nu à la chaisewas included in the acclaimed van Dongen retrospective exhibition held in Monaco, Montreal and Rotterdam in 2008-09.