Vincent Van Gogh

Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, Amsterdam

Paul Cassirer, Berlin (acquired from the above in June 1910)

Dr. Johannes Guthmann, Berlin-Cladow (acquired from the above)

Léo Lewin, Breslau

Dr. G. Schweitzer, Berlin (acquired before 1929 and sold: Galerie Cassirer, Berlin, October 20, 1932, lot 126)

Private Collection, Paris

André Weil, Paris

Walter Feilchenfeldt, Zürich (acquired from the above in 1952)

Richard Feigen Gallery, New York (acquired from the above in 1954)

Harry Spiro, New Orleans (acquired from the above in 1965)

Acquired by the present owner in 1998

Berlin, Galerie d'art Paul Cassirer, Vincent van Gogh, 1914, no. 43

Berlin, Galerie Mathiesen, 1927, no. 117

Berlin, Galerie d'art Paul Cassirer, Vincent van Gogh, 1928, no. 11

Rotterdam, Museum Boymans, Vier Eeuwen Stilleven in Frankrijk, 1954, no. 115

Munich, Haus der Kunst, Vincent van Gogh, 1956, no. 107

Paris, Petit Palais, De Géricault à Matisse, 1959, no. 66

Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André, Vincent van Gogh, 1960, no. 195

Hamburg, Kunstverein, Wegbereiter der doernen Malerei Cézanne-Gauguin-Van Gogh-Seurat, 1963, no. 77

New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Vincent van Gogh and Expressionism, 1964

Jakob-Baart de la Faille, L'oeuvre de Vincent Van Gogh, Catalogue raisonné, vol. I, Paris and Brussels, 1928, no. 216, catalogued p. 64; vol. II, no. 216, illustrated pl. LVIII (titled Torse de femme)

Jakob-Baart de la Faille, Vincent Van Gogh, Paris, 1939, no. F216, illustrated p. 191 (titled Torso of a Woman)

Jakob-Baart de la Faille, The Works of Vincent Van Gogh, Amsterdam, 1970, no. F216, illustrated p. 115

Paolo Lecaldano, L'Opera pittorica completa di Van Gogh, Milan, 1971, no. 326, illustrated p. 113

Jan Hulsker, The Complete Van Gogh, New York, 1977, no. 1348, illustrated p. 303

Abraham M. Hammacher, Genius and Disaster, The Ten Creative Years of Vincent van Gogh, New York, 1985, illustrated in color p. 35

Vincent van Gogh (exhibition catalogue), The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo & Nagoya City Museum, 1985-86, fig. 1, illustrated p. 119

Walter Feilchenfeldt, Vincent van Gogh & Paul Cassirer, Berlin, Amsterdam, 1988, no. F216, illustrated p. 84

Ingo F. Walther & Rainer Metzger, Vincent van Gogh, The Complete Paintings, Vol. I, Etten, April 1881-Paris, February 1888, Cologne, 1990, illustrated in color p. 292

Jan Hulsker, The New Complete Van Gogh, Amsterdam, 1996, no. 1348, illustrated p. 303 (titled Plaster Statuette)

Original canvas with a thin strip lining attached to the original stretcher. The impasto is intact. Under ultra-violet light, there is no evidence of retouching. This painting is in excellent condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Plaster Statuette: Female Torso, seen from the Front was painted in 1887, a year after Van Gogh had moved to Paris.  Soon after his arrival in the French capital, Van Gogh was introduced to several of the most innovative artists working there, including Signac, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec and Bernard.  With the encouragement and company of his brother Theo, Van Gogh frequented the many cafés and taverns where he exchanged both ideas and canvases with his new circle of friends.  The city also offered Van Gogh several opportunities to view the critically acclaimed works of the Impressionists, whose paintings were most notably featured at their eighth and final group exhibition in 1886.  Van Gogh rapidly absorbed all of the disparate artistic styles and techniques pioneered by the Parisian avant-garde, and quickly formulated his own highly distinctive pictorial language.  This remarkable work is a testament to the unique and imaginative style he developed during his Paris years, and the lively palette he employed is a precursor to the explosion of color that the brilliant light of the south of France would engender in his later paintings.

 

Shortly after his arrival in Paris, Van Gogh wrote in a letter to a fellow artist Horace Lievens: "And do not forget, my dear fellow, that Paris is Paris.  There is only one Paris, and, hard as it may be to live here, even if it were to grow harder and worse – French air clears the head and does one good, tremendously good" (letter no. 459a).  The artist's enthusiasm for his new surroundings was soon reflected in his work. It was during his stay in Paris that Van Gogh's art underwent a major stylistic shift, and the most important change was in the diversifying of his palette and his turn towards the use of bright, contrasted colours.  Writing of the effect Paris had on the artist, John Rewald commented: "Van Gogh was now extremely eager to put to use all the new things he had learned. Gradually he abandoned the dark and earthy colors he had used in his early work [...]  In Paris his paintings not only became chromatically lighter, their mood also brightened" (J. Rewald, Post-Impressionism, from Van Gogh to Gauguin, New York, 1956, p. 36).  Works such as Plaster Statuette had a strong influence on Fauve artists, including Matisse (see fig. 1), who adopted not only Van Gogh's bold colors but also the subject matter of Plaster Statuette.

 

Although very little documentation exists on Van Gogh's focus on this subject in Paris, Abraham M. Hammacher provides the following information:  "[T]he letters from the preceding period, in Antwerp, do give a clue to his intentions with a series of studies after plaster casts of female torsos and nudes.  At the Academy in Antwerp he learned to draw and paint after plaster casts of ancient sculpture, and was '...amazed at the ancients' wonderful knowledge and the correctness of their sentiment' (letter no. 445).  His way of drawing these casts scandalized his professors, though, for as nearly as he could, he translated them from sculpture into living human models.  This reproduction makes it clear that in Paris Van Gogh was also fascinated by the problem of space, and that some of the Antwerp influences continued to preoccupy him during his first months in France" (A. M. Hammacher, op. cit. p. 35).

 

During his two years in Paris, Van Gogh made numerous visits to the Louvre, where he was certainly inspired by Classical sculpture such as the celebrated Vénus de Milo (fig. 2).  Furthermore, during the drawing lessons he took at the Koninklijke Academie (Royal Academy) in Antwerp he would have studied from plaster models, which were the likely source of inspiration for the present work, and several related oils depicting the plaster statue (figs. 3, 4 & 5).  Apart from these classical influences, the present work reflects the impact of another style, that of Japanese prints.  In early 1887 Van Gogh started frequenting the shop of Siegfried Bing who sold oriental art, from whom he bought a number of Japanese prints. Writing about the technique Van Gogh adopted in depicting the plaster statue, Bernard Zurcher commented that "the plane in which the plaster statuette is placed crosses the picture surface vertically from one edge to the other, forsaking all the rules of illusionist perspective for the 'plunging' approach of the Japanese.  This 'coincidence' shows that Vincent was one of the first Western painters who dared to adopt this approach in such a radical way" (B. Zurcher, Vincent Van Gogh. Art, Life and Letters, New York, 1985, p. 130).