JEAN BÉRAUD | Jeune femme, place de la Concorde

Madeline Cutting Hibbs, Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts (and sold: Christie's, New York, February 12, 1998, lot 61)
Richard Green Fine Paintings, Ltd., London
Acquired from the above in 2001

Patrick Offenstadt, Jean Béraud 1849-1935, The Belle Époque: A Dream of Times Gone By, catalogue raisonné, Cologne, 1999, no. 100, illustrated p. 131

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work on a mahogany panel is in beautiful condition. The panel is flat. The paint layer is clean and varnished. Under ultraviolet light, one can see a few tiny dots of retouching on the right side of the sky, but the work is otherwise more or less completely unretouched. The condition is excellent, and the work should be hung in its current state.
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.

In this arresting and elegant composition, Jean Béraud captures the spirit of the Place de la Concorde (see fig. 1), where a young woman sends a sphinxlike gaze towards the viewer. Her fashionable ensemble cuts a sharp line against the atmospheric square behind her; looking south towards the Palais Bourbon, the spires of the Basilique Sainte-Clothilde are suggested at left and the gates the Champs Elysées at right. While the Place de la Concorde was once the gruesome home of the guillotine and the location of Marie Antoinette’s beheading (among countless others), Béraud celebrates the modern public space, where seeing and being seen is an extravagant sport, which lends the streets of Paris their electrifying joie-de-vivre. Béraud’s paintings are synonymous with the Belle Époque, so much so that at the turn of the century any painted scene of Parisian life came to be known as a ‘Béraud.’ He adored the city, in all weathers, at any time of day or night, indoors or out, and above all loved its people, whether the aristocracy and upper middle classes, the bourgeoisie, or the working people. A pupil of Léon Bonnat, Béraud’s rigorous draftsmanship owes something to this academic training, but his choice of subjects was far from that of the Academics such as William Bouguereau, Georges Jules Victor Clairin and Charles Gleyre. In graphic, spare works such as this, it is clear that Béraud’s elegant realism owed something to the new art of photography pioneered by Nicéphore Niépce, Louis Daguerre, and Henry Fox Talbot.

Béraud embraced the world of fashion and celebrated the art of dress. He took great pleasure in detailing the elaborate costumes of Parisiennes during the Belle Époque, and the shops of the rue de la Paix, including the famous Maison Doucet and Maison Paquin. Indeed, both the men and women of Paris knew that public life required them to be on display, and they shopped and dressed with that mind.