Jules Bastien-Lepage

Vente Bastien-Lepage, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 11-12, 1865, lot 6
Collection of Marie-Auguste Flameng, Nancy 
Collection of Mlle Petit-Dossarise, Nancy
Collection of Jean-Louis Burtin, Nancy (probably acquired from the above in 1933)
Thence by descent

Paris, École des Beaux-Arts (Hôtel de Chimay), Exposition des oeuvres de Jules Bastien-Lepage, March-April 1885, no. 156
Nancy, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Peinture et Art Nouveau, April 24-July 26, 1999, no. 28
Paris, Musée d'Orsay; Verdun, Centre mondial de la Paix, Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884), March 6, 2007-September 16, 2007, no. 54

Dorothy Stanley, “Bastien-Lepage in London,” Art Journal, 1897, pp. 53-7
Richard Muther, History of Modern Painting, London, vol. 3, 1907, p. 267, illustrated p. 258
William Steven Feldman, The Life and Work of Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884), unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, New York University, 1973, pp. 166-7
Kenneth McConkey, “The Bouguereau of the Naturalists: Bastien-Lepage and British Art,” Art History 1, no. 3, 1978, p. 374
Christian Debize, Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884), exh. cat., Conservation des Musées de la Meuse, 1984, p. 5, 12, 21, 27
Jules Bastien-Lepage: Damvillers 1848-Paris 1884, exh. cat., Les Musées de la Meuse, 1984, illustrated p. 126
Madeleine Aubrun, Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884): Catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre, Paris, 1985, p. 234, no. 368, illustrated
Gabriel P. Weisberg, Redefining Genre: French and American Painting 1850-1900, Washington, D.C., 1995, pp. 87-8, illustrated p. 87
Jacques Thuillier, Jules Bastien-Lepage, Metz, 2005, pp. 118-9
Kenneth McConkey, "Un petit cercle de thuriferaires — Bastien-Lepage et La Grande Bretagne," 48/18 La revue du Musee d'Orsay, no. 24, Spring 2007, p. 25, illustrated p. 24

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This painting has been fairly recently restored and should be hung in its current state. The canvas has an old glue lining. The paint layer is cleaned, although it probably still retains a noticeable dirt layer in some areas, such as in the flower arrangement for instance. The only restoration is to a fairly long break in the canvas which runs horizontally beneath the basket of flowers, vertically through the left of the basket of flowers to the standing figure in the upper left, and then horizontally across his chest. This is an isolated and clean break that has been nicely restored. There are no other restorations to the picture. This is a work that certainly should be seen to be in very good condition, since this particular damage is very isolated and has not impacted the remainder of the work in any way.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

In a photograph of Jules Bastien-Lepage’s studio on rue Legendre in the 17^th arrondissement in Paris (fig. 1), produced after his death in 1884, several of the artist’s works remain on display, including La Chanson du printemps (circa 1873, Musée de la Princerie, Verdun, France), a portrait of his brother Émile Bastien-Lepage (1879, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy); Fleur du chemin or La Petite bergère (1882, Private Collection) and the Portrait of Mme Juliette Drouet (1883, Maison de Victor Hugo, Paris) and the present work, Marchande de fleurs à Londres. Painted in 1882, the fact that the painting was found in the artist’s studio after his death clearly establishes its pedigree and its significance for the artist.

What is unusual about this Marchande de fleurs is that she is not French but English, and one of only two working-class subjects that Bastien-Lepage completed in London, the other being Le petit cireur de bottes (1882, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, fig. 2). Bastien-Lepage first visited London in 1879 when two of his portraits were included in the Royal Academy exhibition of that year. He used this opportunity to find prospective clients for portraits, returning to paint a portrait of the Prince of Wales (Portrait du Prince de Galles, 1879, Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London), and again, for the last time, in 1882.

Marchande de fleurs and Le petit cireur de bottes were painted in the studio of Dorothy Tennant (later known as Lady Stanley after her marriage to the explorer, Henry Morton Stanley, in 1890) herself an artist who had been very impressed by the young Bastien-Lepage as he made his impact on the London art scene. She recalled her impressions of the artist and of his two English subjects in an article published in 1897 in the London Art Journal, noting that the artist was so interested in the city “We undertook… to show him London – not the sights… but… those bits of London most characteristic or more picturesque.” (Stanley, p. 53) After painting the shoeblack in Le petit cireur de bottes, Bastien-Lepage decided, together with Tennant, that a flower girl would be an appropriate English subject. His model was found near Charing Cross and according to Tennant was “a tall, graceful girl, with sloping shoulders, wrapped in a thin weather-stained shawl, her hair tangled over the eyes, and drawn back in a knot at the back” (Stanley, p. 53). Tennant reproached him for not putting enough sentiment into the picture, to which he responded “I don’t put literature into the painting, like you English; I am satisfied to represent nature just as I see her” (Stanley, p. 56).  While the flower girl is situated confrontationally in the foreground, as if ready to speak to an approaching client, Bastien-Lepage added well-dressed figures farther away in the upper left, visually establishing the stratification of the social classes.

Many nineteenth century art critics, and their twentieth century followers, have tried to find correspondences between Bastien-Lepage’s style or manner of painting and his peers. Émile Zola described him as “le petit-fils de Courbet et de Millet." His flower girl in the present work has been compared with Édouard Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1881-82, The Courtland Institute, London), exhibited at the Salon of 1882, and the tilt of the sitters' heads, black chokers and indifferent yet enticing expressions certainly align. While Manet is mainly concerned with rendering the psychological state of his sitter, Bastien-Lepage is more interested in conveying the narrative of his scene and its implications for the principal character.

Marchande de fleurs à Londres also lends itself to comparison with a much earlier work by Manet, Street Singer (circa 1862, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, fig. 3). Bastien-Lepage undoubtedly knew this earlier work, and sensitively depicts the resignation of his subject with the same sense of realism and empathy.