Leonor Fini

Private Collection (acquired directly from the artist in Geneva)
Thence by descent to the present owner in 1973

Paris, Galerie Alexandre Iolas, Leonor Fini, 1965, no. 1
Knokke, Knokke Le Zoute Casino Communal, Leonor Fini, 1965, no. 76
Turin, Galatea Galleria d'Arte Contemporanea, Leonor Fini, 1966, no. 2
Madrid, Galeria Iolas-Velasco, Leonor Fini, 1968, no. 8
Brussels, Galerie Isy Brachot, Retrospective Leonor Fini, 1970, no. 24
Bordeaux, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Surréalisme, 1971, no. 104
Tokyo, Seibu Museum & travelling in Japan, Leonor Fini Retrospective, 1972-73, no. 15

Constantin Jelenski, Leonor Fini, Lausanne, 1968-72, no. 117, illustrated in colour p. 117
Takahiko Okada, Leonor Fini, Japan, 1972, no. 15, illustrated n.p 
Jean-Claude Dedieu, Leonor Fini, Paris, 1978, n.n., illustrated in colour pp. 34-35
Leonor Fini, Leonor Fini Peintures, 1994, Paris, n.n, illustrated in colour pp. 94-95

The canvas is lined. There is a layer of varnish preventing the UV light from fully penetrating, however UV examination does reveal a few scattered spots of fluorescence, all of which appear to be inherent to the artist's materials or unevenness in the varnish. There are also some tiny fly spots towards the centre of the composition. There are some fine lines of craquelure and some minor rubbing to the extreme edges. This work would benefit from a clean. Overall this work is in good condition.
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Exhibiting an extraordinary grandeur of scope and scale, L’Abreuvoir de nuit / Le songe d'une nuit d'été is a magnificent example of Leonor Fini’s career-long interest in the occult and the power of the feminine. Evoking a fantastical world poised intriguingly between dream and nightmare, the present work conveys a sensation of the mystery inherent within a midsummer night, a time in which, according to mythological and literary tradition, magical creatures flourish. Fini is known to have read books on the occult and mythology such as The White Goddess (1948) by Robert Graves and La Sorcière (1862) by Jules Michelet, and to have subsequently employed ideas from these works within her painting.

Within L’Abreuvoir de nuit / Le songe d'une nuit d'été three figures rest amidst a bed of petals, seemingly caught within the midst of an enchantment, whilst feminine spirits appear to disport themselves nearby. Whitney Chadwick notes the significance of the feminine form within Fini’s painting: ‘Fini refused to accept a world defined by male institutions… By placing women at the centre of [her] compositions, and making her experience of the world paramount, she asserts a female consciousness that has no need of manifestos, theories or proselytizing’ (Whitney Chadwick, Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement, London, 1991, pp. 86-7).  

Chadwick further notes the dreamlike quality inherent within Fini’s works: ‘Although they are not dreams in a literal sense, her paintings follow the path of the dream, as silent and immobile, as pregnant with meaning as the works of the Italian metaphysical painters that were among her first influences’ (ibid.). In its strikingly nocturnal palette and surrealist subject matter, L’Abreuvoir de nuit / Le songe d'une nuit d'été ultimately reveals Fini’s remarkable ability to convey the immaterial within her painting.