Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer French, 1865-1953

Purchased by the grandmother of the present owner; thence by descent

Brussels, Artistes Français, n.d., no. 23

This condition report has been provided by Jane McAusland FIIC, Conservator and Restorer of Art on Paper, Nether Hall Barn, Old Newton Nr, Stowmarket, Suffolk IP14. C O N D I T I O N R E P O R T SOTHEBY'S - SYMBOLISM AND THE POETIC VISION - 14 NOVEMBER 2007 Lot 250 Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer French, 1865-1953 VENICE Signed L Lévy-Dhurmer l.l. Pastel on paper 84 x 63 cm Support The artist has used a large sheet of grey paper to support this pastel work. At present it is attached to a conservation board on an original panel. There is a supported tear, lower right across the corner approximately 15 cms long. The sheet is slightly undulating. Medium The condition of the pastel is fresh, bright and unfaded. Note: This work was viewed outside studio conditions. JANE McAUSLAND London office: Flat 3, 41 Lexington Street, Soho, London W1F 9AJ Fellow of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works Jane McAusland Limited trading as Jane McAusland FIIC
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer trained at the Ecole Supérieure de Dessin et Sculpture in Paris. After a trip to Venice in 1895, he returned to Paris and had his first one-man show at the Galerie Georges Petit in 1896.  

It was around this time that Lévy-Dhurmer started to work primarily with pastels, a medium which gave his compositions an ethereal, velvety texture and soft tonal contrasts which heighten their dream-like qualities. His talent was discovered by the Belgian Symbolist writer Georges Rodenbach, a popular poet in Paris, for his book Bruges-la-Morte of 1892, who helped to popularise the artist's work both in France and Belgium.

As Jean Cassou has pointed out: '(Lévy-Dhurmer's) pastels reveal an artist who can reconcile a technique of academic precision with an Impressionist vision of the world, and can thus treat his Symbolist subjects loaded with mystery.' (Concise Encyclopaedia of Symbolism, Ware, 1984, p. 99). The present work bears clear parallels to the work of Henri Le Sidaner and Claude Monet, both of whom evoked the grandeur and mystery of Venice in their work, and also, like Lévy-Dhurmer, exhibited at Galerie Georges Petit.