58 - HENRI LEBASQUE (1865–1937)

HENRI LEBASQUE (1865–1937) Nude with Fruit Bowl, circa 1925–1926 Oil on canvas Signed lower right 46 x 55 cm - 18 1/8 x 21 5/8 in. A copy of a certificate from Mr. Philippe Cézanne, dated March 5, 1985, will be provided to the purchaser. Oil on canvas, signed lower right Provenance Private collection, France (acquired in 1985 by the current owner’s father) Related Work(s) Henri Lebasque (1865–1937), Nude with a Bowl of Fruit, oil on canvas, signed lower left, 65 x 100 cm, in. Auction, Impressionist & Nineteenth-Century Art, Christie’s, New York, May 13, 1999, lot 176 Henri Lebasque (1865–1937), Still Life with Pomegranates, oil on canvas, signed lower left, 42 x 55 cm, unsigned. Auction, Modern Paintings & 20th-Century Decorative Arts, Audap & Associés, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, June 26, 2025, lot 11 Catalog Entry “The painting style of a sensitive artist like Lebasque changes according to the atmospheric conditions of his surroundings. Rapid and jagged when capturing the violent flashes of daylight from outside, it becomes calmer and more enveloping when turned inward. Here we find once again the generous swaths of paint characteristic of his later style—that of Sainte-Maxime and Les Andelys, for example; but he takes care to let the light glide more gently over these fresh complexions, over these new flowers spread out before him, whose velvety texture, pearlescent sheen, and milky blond hues enchant him and renew his palette. Robust at times and always sincere, he knows how to make a vivid splash of color burst forth and make pure tones sing, just as he knows how to model true forms, without sentimentality or dullness. One senses the air circulating around his models—the air that bathes the luminous interiors of the Mediterranean coast, the light that streams in through closed shutters or wide-open windows onto lush greenery or harmonious horizons; one also senses the truth of the forms, which remain distinct—sometimes blossoming in a golden, lush natural setting that Rubens would have loved, sometimes more delicate and energetic, as in this large figure reclining on a leopard skin—one of the last and most important pieces in the series—or in this other one crouching, her head on her knees, in an unexpected arabesque, in front of a pink sofa. Here again is the same young woman emerging from the bath, draped in her orange bathrobe with black patterns that opens invitingly, while another female figure walks away through an open door nearby, dressed in a light blue gown that sets off her fair complexion. It is undoubtedly this one who, a moment ago, was lying more languidly on the sofa, half-undressed, or who, completely naked, rested with her arms crossed above her head, caressed by the rays of light streaming through the open window, or who, kneeling on the armchair and gazing out the window at the distant hills, offered to the viewer the abundant sight of a voluptuous behind. With this very free and luminous series, we are as far removed as possible from the academic nudes frozen by the memory of the Greco-Roman model or by the dry, linear, and soulless study of the studio model. Lebasque’s sensibility blossoms here in complete freedom; his joy in painting the resplendent light of nature is evident here; he has not been touched by the bitterness and the sort of disenchantment that emanate from too many contemporary nude paintings, in which the artist, by relentlessly pursuing an implacable truth in form and color, descends into a base and trivial materialism. Standing before his radiant nudes, one is reminded of the dazzling, sensual poems of Rubens, whose power he undoubtedly does not match, but whose voluptuous and monotonous exaggeration he avoids; one is also reminded of the delicate visions of our 18th-century French painters, who had a singular fondness for this pearly freshness, but who often—Boucher in particular—fell into the formulas of a sort of gallant academicism. It is true and simple nature that unfolds here without reserve, yet without immodesty, without bawdiness or innuendo; and it is the mastery of a born colorist that asserts itself with complete freedom, without system or formula, with a particular attention to harmonies and melodious color combinations that are especially delightful.” Paul Vitry, *Henri Lebasque*, Paris: Georges Petit and Henri Floury, 1928, pp. 174–184 Additional Information This work is part of a series of nudes, painted around 1925–1926, featuring Alice Prin (1901–1953), known as “Kiki” or “Kiki de Montparnasse.” Denise Bazetoux says of these nudes that they “bear no resemblance to studio models.” To achieve this result, she notes that the painter “observes his models moving freely before him, then chooses the pose or movement that appeals to him in order to capture it.”