3036 - FERDINAND HODLER

FERDINAND HODLER (Bern 1853–1918 Geneva) Bildnis Francine Meylach. 1916. Oil on canvas. Dated and signed lower right: 1916 F. Hodler. Inscribed upper right: Francine. 47.5 × 43.5 cm. Provenance: - Probably Ségal Antiquités M&G, Basel, until 1945. - Probably Galerie Dr Willi Raeber, Basel, 1945. - Probably private collection C. Rüfenacht, Zurich, 1945. - Private collection Franz Meyer-Chagall-Federspiel, Zurich, until 1979. - Auction Sotheby's Zurich, 14 November 1979, lot 56. - Private collection, Switzerland, acquired at the above auction. Literature: Oskar Bätschmann and Paul Müller: Ferdinand Hodler. Catalogue raisonné der Gemälde, ed. Schweizerisches Institut für Kunstwissenschaft, vol. II, Die Bildnisse, Zurich 2012, p. 318, no. 995 (illustrated). Ferdinand Hodler met the Maltese-born dancer Francine Meylach in Geneva in 1916. That same year he painted five portraits of her in different formats and poses. While three of the known versions are composed as conventional portraits, establishing a direct relationship between sitter and viewer, both the present painting and the work in the Musée d’art et d’histoire in Geneva go beyond portraiture in the strict sense. The pose of ‘Francine’ strongly recalls Hodler’s figure studies for his celebrated mural ‘Blick ins Unendliche’. Hodler had been working on this composition since receiving the commission from the Kunsthaus Zürich in 1910 (see ill.). Two monumental versions for Zurich and Basel subsequently emerged, together with further, smaller versions. In 1916, Hodler was working towards completion of the definitive Zurich version, now installed in the stairwell of the Kunsthaus Zürich. The inclination of the head in the portrait of ‘Francine’, a gesture Hodler had explored, among other places, in his composition for ‘Blick ins Unendliche’, is no incidental motif but a deliberate means of expression. It suggests introspection and inward composure, turning the gaze away from the external world towards a spiritual plane beyond the individual. In Francine’s quiet, slightly detached pose, Hodler distils a state of contemplative absorption that transcends the individual and may be understood as an image of an existence directed towards the infinite.