Alfred Stevens

Louis Sarlin (and sold, his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, March 2, 1918, lots 64-67, sold outside of the auction together with the entire contents of the sale to Herman Heilbuth, Copenhagen)
Private Collection, Sweden (by 1935)
Thence by descent

Paris, École des Beaux-Arts, Exposition de l'oeuvre d'Alfred Stevens, February 6-27, 1900, nos. 149-152 (lent by Louis Sarlin)
Exposition de la collection de feu Monsieur Sarlin au profit de l'Association générale des mutilés de la guerre (no date or location listed, probably Galerie Georges Petit, 1918), nos. 65-69

Camille Lemonnier, "Alfred Stevens et les quatre saisons,"1877
Camille Lemonnier, Les Peintres de la vie, 2nd ed., 1888, p. 145
Robert de Montesquiou, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1900, p. 112
François Monod, Un peintre des femmes du second empire Alfred Stevens, 1909, p. 13
"La Collection de feu M. Louis Sarlin," L'opinion, vol. II, 1918, p. 160
William A. Coles, Alfred Stevens, exh. cat., The University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor; The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Montreal, September 10, 1977-March 19, 1978, p. 63
Sarah Lees, ed., Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 2012, p. 768 

This set of four picture is in beautiful condition. The canvases are mounted onto old panels and it could be that this mounting is original. The paint layers are stable. The panels are flat. The paintings have been recently cleaned. There is no damage to any of the pictures. There are very tiny retouches mainly around the edges. The works should be hung in their current condition.
"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 1866, King Leopold II of Belgium commissioned a set of allegorical paintings of the four seasons from Alfred Stevens.  While Le printemps was completed in 1869, the remaining seasons were not realized until 1875-6 (each measuring 53 ¾ by 16 1/2; 139 by 42 cm and now held by the Collection Royale, Belgium).  In 1877, a second, slightly smaller series (46½ by 23½ in.; 118.4 by 59.6 cm) was ordered by wealthy Belgian industrialist Arthur Warocqué (1835-1880), for his mansion on the Avenue des Arts in Brussels (now held by The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts) (John House, catalogue entries for no. 319-322, in Nineteenth Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, p. 768).  Painted circa 1869-1871, the present works are the “première idée” for the Royal works. While studies, they are remarkably finished and faithful in design to the realized Royal works. These Quatre Saisons were acquired by Louis Sarlin, whose impressive art collection was offered for sale in 1918 and largely hidden from public view ever since (intended for auction by Georges Petit, the entire contents of the sale were privately purchased by Herman Heilbuth for 3,000,000 francs).  Described by contemporary writers as “La Collection de feu,”  the pages of Sarlin’s lavish auction catalogue recorded a diverse group of contemporary artwork of the time, including nineteen paintings by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot,  Eugène Fromentin’s Orientalist compositions, impressive works on paper by Eugène Delacroix and Gustave Moreau, and joining Les Quatre Saisons, Stevens’ l’Atelier (sold in these rooms on January 25, 1980, lot 148 and gifted to The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Mrs. Charles Wrightsman in 1986). 

No matter the subtle variations, in each of Les Quatre Saisons, Stevens favored a contemporary view of the moments in a woman’s life over traditional art iconography of the passing seasons.  The choice was immediately recognized by the press, which boasted that Stevens’ conception would preclude “banal mythological allegories” in favor of “four female figures of different ages and wearing costumes that are dictated by the state of the landscape through which they are passing” (La Presse as translated and quoted in House, p. 769).   Indeed, as John House explains in exploration of the Warocqué paintings, the backgrounds have a “triple function” in representing the season, the times of day, and in complementing the implied narrative (p. 769-70).  Le Printemps has the cool, early light of morning, the budding flowers and dove suggesting a beginning love affair; L’Été shields herself from the warmth of the bright sun, holding an abundant bouquet suggesting a suitor, and L’Automne is dressed against the chill of the season and reads a book in solitude -- hinting at a waning love.  King Leopold’s own aesthetic sensibilities thwarted what may have been Steven’s original plan to paint L’Hiver as an older woman (whereas the ruler only wanted young beauties bedecking his residence) who looks introspectively in the mirror.   The sequence is aptly summarized by the Belgian writer Charles Lemmonier, who described  Les Quatre Saisons in 1877: “the first hopes, the second, loves, the third regrets, and the fourth has the sort of vague… virginity of winter”  (as translated and reproduced in the Sarlin catalogue, p. 60).

Designed as part of a larger interior decoration, Stevens' works can be read as both an allegorical campaign and equally successfully as individual representations of fashionably dressed women.  While there are known variations of individual pictures in the series, including Reveries, a variation of L’Automne in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the present works may likely be the only remaining complete set of Les Quatre Saisons untraced. For well over half a century Les Quatre Saisons have been part of a private Swedish collection and as evidenced by photographs of the works hung at home the works were enjoyed, just as the Royal and Warocqué examples, as part of a well considered interior design (fig. 1, 2).