Paul Signac

Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired from the artist)
Walter Epstein (acquired from the above on 23rd May 1910)
Private Collection (sold: Sotheby's, London, 28th June 1961, lot 166)
Private Collection, Paris (purchased at the above sale)

Paris, Salon des Indépendants, 1912, no. 2998 (titled La Salute)
Düsseldorf, Galerie Alfred Flechtheim & Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paul Signac, 1913, no. 14 (titled La Salute verte)
Venice, XII Biennale Internazionale d'Arte, 1920, no. 61 (titled La Salute)

The artist's handlist (Cahier manuscrit), listed as Venise. La Salute - Vert
Louis Vauxcelles, Le Gil Blas, 19th March 1912, pp. 1-2 (with incorrect title)
H. Revers, Les Nouvelles, 19th-20th March 1912, p. 3
James Burkley, L'Assiette au beurre, 23rd March 1912, n.p.
Thiébault-Sisson, Le Temps, 23rd March 1912, p. 5
Parisis, Le Phare de la Loire, 25th March 1912
Louis Paillard, Le Petit Journal, 31st March 1912, p. 3
Gustave Kahn, Mercure de France, 1st April 1912, pp. 634-643
Jean Laran, Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de l'art français, 1912, pp. 97-98
G. Rivier, Le Journal des arts, 6th April 1912, p. 1
Ludovic Lausecker, Comme il vous plaira, May 1912
Léon Rosenthal, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, May 1912, p. 351
Journal d'Alsace-Lorraine, 10th June 1912
Emile Théodore, Bulletin de la vie artistique, 1st May 1920, pp. 294-296
Pascal Forthuny, Bulletin de la vie artistique, 1st July 1920, p. 436
Gaston Lévy, 'Pré-catalogue', circa 1932, illustrated p. 398
Françoise Cachin, Signac. Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint, Paris, 2000, no. 473, illustrated p. 290

The canvas is unlined and there is no evidence of retouching under ultra-violet light. This work is in excellent original condition. Colours: In comparison to the printed catalogue illustration, the painting has a slightly warmer and yellower overall tonality, and the colours are fresher in the original.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
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."

Venice. La Salute. Vert was inspired by Signac's visit to Venice in the spring of 1908. It depicts a view along the Grand Canal, crowned by the majestic church of Santa Maria della Salute. Signac had first planned to visit Venice in the summer of 1903, his fascination with the city partly inspired by John Ruskin's popular The Stones of Venice, but postponed his travels until the following year. He arrived there at the end of March 1904, staying until May, and producing a large number of watercolours during his sojourn. Several of Signac's Venice oils were exhibited at the 1905 Salon des Indépendants (fig. 1), where they were greatly admired by both the public and the critics. Louis Vauxcelles wrote at the time: 'nothing is more vibrant, more atmospheric, than the shimmering Venice of M. Signac.'

 

The present work was executed during a subsequent visit in 1908 with his wife Berthe. Signac arrived in Italy in February of that year, and having visited various places including Portofino, Florence, Sienna and Rome, towards the end of March he arrived in Venice, where he stayed until early May, residing at the Casa Fontana. Signac painted Venise. La Salute. Vert on a bright day, and the city's landmark features – the imposing church, the customs house 'La Dogana' to its left, gondolas and sailing boats – are all beautifully rendered and reflected on the surface of the water. It was during that same year that Claude Monet travelled to Venice, producing a celebrated series of views of Santa Maria della Salute (fig. 2). In the present work, Signac's mosaic-like brushwork, juxtaposing dabs of bright green, blue, pink and yellow pigment, gives the scene the shimmering effect that both artists admired.

Marina Ferretti-Bocquillon wrote that 'the City of the Doges had everything to offer the avid museum-goer Signac had become in his search for new subject matter. He visited an impressive number of churches and museums, always delighted when he found in the masterpieces of the past traces of an instinctive use of the principles of color division and contrast. Between museum visits he enjoyed the spectacle of the city and executed a large number of watercolors [...]. Signac was enchanted by the play of light, water, and sky, and the color of the monuments. Clear architectural forms dissolved in the atmosphere in his compositions, which were often centered on boats, gondolas, or bragozzi with colorful sails' (M. Ferretti-Bocquillon, in Signac (exhibition catalogue), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2001, p. 233-234).

 

Situated on the Grand Canal, the seventeenth-century church of Santa Maria della Salute was built as the city's offering to God after many of its citizens were killed by the devastating plague in 1630. Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the church was designed by the architect Baldassare Longhena, a pupil of the famous Andrea Palladio, as an octagonal basilica that combined elements of Venetian Byzantine architecture and domes inspired by St. Peter's basilica in Rome. In The Companion Guide to Venice, Hugh Honour wrote about this celebrated monument: 'If you come to Venice by sea - and any other approach is like entering a palace through the back door - the most prominent of the myriad architectural marvels that greet you is the church of Santa Maria della Salute. As if riding at anchor at the entrance to the Grand Canal, with its balloon-like dome weighed down by great baroque scrolls, this fabulous building dominates the scene even more than the Palazzo Ducale or San Giorgio Maggiore. It is the supreme masterpiece of the Venetian Baroque - and of its author Baldassare Longhena, one of the few Venetian architects whose personality is strong enough to glimmer through the mists of history. Contemporaries tell us that he was a short dapper man, always dressed in black, of quiet and gentle manners. He had the embarrassing habit of asking everyone he met their opinion of whatever work he then had in hand. But this apparent lack of self-assurance finds no echo in the magnificently extrovert and ebullient buildings he designed, least of all in Santa Maria della Salute' (H. Honour, The Companion Guide to Venice, Woodbridge, 1996).

 

By the time he painted the present work, Signac had developed his pointillist technique so that his dabs of paint had become larger than the more tightly spaced dots of his earlier compositions. The overall chromatic impact of these pictures was like that of a tiled mosaic, evoking the shimmering effect of Mediterranean light. The individualised colour patches demonstrate an expressiveness and freedom of execution that had inspired the Fauve painters several years earlier.

 

 

Fig. 1, Paul Signac, Venise. Bassin de Saint-Marc, 1905, oil on canvas, The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia

Fig. 2, Claude Monet, Le Grand Canal, 1908, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston