Lot n° 172
Estimation :
20000 - 30000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 51 520EUR
Marie LAURENCIN (1883-1956) - Lot 172
Marie LAURENCIN (1883-1956)
Portrait of Jeanne Dubost, née Bénard, 1922
Oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right and numbered PH 17995 on the back on the stretcher.
61 x 50 cm
Provenance:
- Former Jeanne Dubost collection, Paris
- Former M. Bloch collection, Paris
- Sale Palais Galliera, Paris, March 12, 1964, N°51 of the catalog
Bibliography:
- Marie laurencin 1883-1956, Catalogue Raisonné de l'OEuvre Peint par Daniel Marcheseau,
Éditions du Musée Marie Laurencin, Japon, 1986, described and reproduced on page 125 as N°206.
- Henri Sauguet, "La musique. L'Éventail de Jeanne à l'Opéra. Un récital de Jane Bathori", L'Europe nouvelle, n°578, March 9, 1929, p. 15-16.
In Paris, there's a welcoming salon where, every week, musicians gather around a charming and kind woman who loves music more than life. Wishing to perform a children's ballet at her home one day, she asked her musician friends to get together and compose a score.
Thus was born L'Éventail de Jeanne, composed for Mme Jeanne Dubost by Maurice Ravel, Florent Schmitt, Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, Francis Poulenc, Albert Roussel, Roland-Manuel, Delannoy, Jacques Ibert and P.-O. Ferroud. Ferroud, all French, if not all musicians.
The performance took place in the salons of the inspirer, and was such a success that it was hoped to breathe even more life into this eclectic "éventail".
On March 4, the Opéra performed it for the first time. One might have feared that this salon show would not pass muster and would be a bit thin on the ground for the immense auditorium. But this was not the case, and the show was a great success. Its rarest and most certain attraction is the delightful interpretation given by a group of delightful children, who dance the various episodes that make up the ballet with charming artistry.
The score, for example, is not first-rate. Only Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Georges Auric understood what was needed, and their simple, lively music fits the show perfectly. Darius Milhaud's Polka was the greatest success. It blossoms happily after the compositions of Messrs Ravel, Ferroud, Ibert, Manuel and Delannoy, who managed to write such anonymous music that it's hard to say which belongs to each of them. Jacques Ibert's Valse was certainly inspired by Maurice Ravel's muse... The latter wrote a polished, polytone fanfare full of vanity. Roland-Manuel's Canarie is cerebral and so distinguished! and M. Delannoy's Bourrée is very ugly. Certainly, the loveliest page of the ballet is Francis Poulenc's Pastourelle, inspired a little perhaps by Stravinsky's muse, but which is delightfully fresh and reminiscent of the most adorable pages in Les Biches. A sort of grand Valse by Florent Schmitt ends the ballet. One thinks that Fl. Schmitt wrote melancholy waltzes about German cities long ago, and regrets that so much water has passed under this bridge... There is also a serious and gentle Sarabande by Albert Roussel, a page of noble music, though a little out of place for this children's ballet.
But this is a delightful show, and I believe it will be as successful each time it is performed as it was when it was first presented, because it is happy and fresh: two qualities rarely found at the Opéra, which gave an infamous performance of L'enlèvement au sérail that same evening.
Jeanne-Renée, daughter of Adrien Bénard, the first president of the Compagnie du Métropolitain.
He had five children, two boys (including the banker Georges Bénard, friend of Marie Laurencin) and three girls, including Jeanne - future Mme Dubost and Marie - future Mme Witzig.
Jeanne married René Dubost, stockbroker, son of the vice-president of the Seine Court, and nephew of Mr. Antonin Dubost, senator for Isère and former minister (she was involved in child relief and Franco-German school exchanges). She was a great patron of the arts.
It was Georges who commissioned Edouard Vuillard to paint his mother's portrait (donated in memory of his uncle Georges by his niece Marie, Mme Augustin Witzig in 1941 to MNAM - now Musée d'Orsay).
- Augustin Witzig (1873-1954): a polytechnician, he married Marie Bénard, daughter of banker Adrien Bénard, in 1903.
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