JACQUES-EMILE BLANCHE | Portrait of Désirée Manfred

Given by the artist to Félicien Cacan (1880 - 1979) who was Blanche's pupil and assistant ; 
Thence by descent ;
Given to the current owerns' parents in the 1980s

Désirée Manfred, was Blanche's favourite model. He painted her about fifty times in numerous portraits and also in the mysterious and melancholic Traveller of the Chicago museum, and in La Panne in the musée de Lyon.In an unpublished text, My models, written for Daniel Halévy's "Green notebooks", he explained how he met Désirée: "An evening of December [...] a strange veiled woman, holding a child, came to offer a me a model that I wound not find anywhere else. [...] This girl had no age: a small but formed body, a beautiful face, green eyes that reminded me of Debussy's mistresses; a je-ne-sais-quoi that has something appealing, undecisive, morbid, that made me first answer that I was not looking for models. [...]" (Cf. Jane Roberts, Jacques-Emile Blanche, Paris, 2012, pp. 68 et 76).

We would like to thank Jane Roberts for confirming the authenticity of this lot. It will be included in her forthcoming catalogue raisonné, under the number 962.