3036 - FERDINAND HODLER

FERDINAND HODLER (Bern 1853–1918 Geneva) Portrait of 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 the private collection of C. Rüfenacht, Zurich, 1945. - Private collection of Franz Meyer-Chagall-Federspiel, Zurich, until 1979. - Auction at Sotheby’s Zurich, November 14, 1979, lot 56. - Private collection, Switzerland, acquired at the above auction. Bibliography: Oskar Bätschmann and Paul Müller: Ferdinand Hodler. Catalogue raisonné der Gemälde, ed. Swiss Institute for Art Research, 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 the sitter and the 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, along with additional, smaller versions. In 1916, Hodler was working toward the completion of the definitive Zurich version, now installed in the stairwell of the Kunsthaus Zürich. The tilt of the head in the portrait of “Francine”—a gesture Hodler had explored, among other works, in his composition for “Blick ins Unendliche”—is not a chance motif but a deliberate means of expression. It suggests introspection and inner composure, turning the gaze away from the external world toward a spiritual plane beyond the individual. In Francine’s quiet, slightly detached pose, Hodler distills a state of contemplative absorption that transcends the individual and may be understood as an image of an existence directed toward the infinite.