3214 - HENRI-THÉODORE FANTIN-LATOUR

HENRI-THÉODORE FANTIN-LATOUR (Grenoble 1836–1904 Buré) Bouquet de fleurs. 1889. Oil on canvas. Signed and dated upper right: Fantin. 89. 51.1 × 62.2 cm. Provenance: - Ruth Edwards, London, acquired from the artist. - Galerie F. & J. Tempelaere, Paris. - Alexander Reid, Glasgow. - John Stewart of Renfrew, Greenock, Scotland. - Alex Reid & Lefevre, London, 1951. - Mary Woodard Lasker (widow of Albert D. Lasker), New York, until 1953. - Alice Woodard Fordyce, New York, inherited from the above. - Auction Parke-Bernet Galleries Inc., New York, 19 May 1966, lot 7. - The Lefevre Gallery and Marlborough Fine Art, London, 1966. - Sir Alfred Lane Beit, Russborough House, Blessington, Ireland (label on verso). - Auction Sotheby’s London, 4 April 1989, lot 29. - Richard Green Gallery, London (label on verso). - Shigeki Kameyama, Tokyo, 1989. - Auction Christie’s New York, 8 November 2000, lot 11. - Richard Green Gallery, London. - Private collection, USA. - Private collection, England. Exhibited: - Exhibited: Glasgow 1950, Fantin-Latour, Ian McNicol Galleries, no. 10. - Dallas 1953, An Exhibition of 69 Paintings from the Collection of Mrs. Albert D. Lasker, Museum of Fine Arts, 6–29 March 1953, no. 33. - Paris/Ottawa/San Francisco 1982/83, Fantin-Latour, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, 9 November 1982–7 February 1983/National Gallery of Canada, 17 March–22 May 1983/California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 18 June–6 September 1983, no. 104 (labels on verso). Literature: - Madame Fantin-Latour: Catalogue de l’œuvre complet de Fantin-Latour, Paris 1911, p. 144, no. 1374. - Wallace Brockway and Alfred Frankfurter: The Albert D. Lasker Collection. Renoir to Matisse, New York 1957, p. 19 (ill.). - The Burlington Magazine, vol. 93, no. 585, December 1951, plate XIX (ill.). This painting will be included by Galerie Brame & Lorenceau in the catalogue raisonné currently in preparation. Painted in 1889, ‘Bouquet de fleurs’ is among the important floral still lifes that brought Fantin-Latour international recognition during his lifetime. The magnificent arrangement brings together a wealth of different flowers, including luxuriant roses, hollyhocks, delicate clematis, love-in-a-mist and mallows. The sophisticated arrangement of the blossoms and the precise balance of their subtle colours create a composition of remarkable vitality and elegance. The warm, golden-brown background enhances the luminosity of the flowers and lends the painting a tranquil, intimate atmosphere. The horizontal tabletop anchors the arrangement in space, while subtle gradations of light and shadow create a sense of depth. Fantin-Latour’s masterly handling of light brings out the brilliance of the blossoms, accentuates their delicate shades and gives their varied surfaces a sculptural presence. Floral still lifes remained central to Fantin-Latour’s work for decades. Unlike the seventeenth-century Dutch still-life painters, who assembled imaginary bouquets from flowers belonging to different seasons, Fantin-Latour painted what was actually before him. His approach began with direct observation: he first prepared the canvas with a neutral ground and allowed it to dry, then arranged the chosen flowers in his studio the following day. The garden of the country estate at Buré in Normandy, inherited by his wife Victoria Dubourg in 1880, provided Fantin-Latour with an almost inexhaustible variety of subjects. He explored different flower shapes, shades and compositional arrangements, as the present ‘Bouquet de fleurs’ demonstrates particularly vividly. Fantin-Latour maintained close relationships with numerous artists who gathered around Édouard Manet during the 1860s. In 1863 he took part in the Salon des Refusés, exhibiting alongside artists such as Édouard Manet, Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne. His celebrated group portrait Un atelier aux Batignolles of 1870, now in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, pays striking tribute to this emerging generation of artists. It depicts Manet at his easel, surrounded by figures including Monet, Renoir and Zola. Despite these close associations, Fantin-Latour retained his artistic independence. He declined to participate in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874 and remained loyal to the official Salon. While his Impressionist contemporaries sought to capture fleeting effects of changing light outdoors, he preferred the concentrated stillness of the studio for his flower paintings. Fantin-Latour made the beauty of nature itself the subject of his painting, without needing to invest it with symbolic meaning. His floral still lifes attracted an enthusiastic following among English collectors from an early stage. Edwin and Ruth Edwards played a decisive role in this, having met Fantin-Latour through James McNeill Whistler and helped introduce his work to collectors in Britain. The present painting is directly connected with this history: Ruth Edwards acquired it from the a