Jean Béraud

Knoedler & Co., Paris (no. 9262)
John Roll McLean, Washington, D.C. (acquired from the above, September 1900)

Patrick Offenstadt, Jean Béraud 1849-1935, The Belle Époque: A Dream of Times Gone By, catalogue raisonné, Cologne, 1999, p. 154, no. 152, illustrated

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work is in lovely condition. The panel is flat and unreinforced. The paint layer is clean and stable. No retouches are visible under ultraviolet light. The work should be hung as is.
"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."

Rue de la Paix, the fashionable shopping street running from the Place Vendôme to the Opéra Garnier (see lot 47), was originally known as rue Napoléon upon its construction in 1806 and changed its name after the first Paris treaty between France and the Allies in 1814. While Parisian shops long had the reputation for quality goods, it was only toward the end of the eighteenth century that the boutiques themselves became  destinations, and their interior décor and shopping experience became as well known as the couture they offered. This reputation only increased through the nineteenth century with the proliferation of magasins followed by large department stores (Françoise Tétart-Vittu,”Shops-Versus  Department Stores,”  Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity, exh. cat., Musée d’Orsay, Paris, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2012-2013, p. 209-10). 

While dressmakers were once located on the upper floors of the Rue de la  Paix’s buildings, they soon descended to ground level with beautifully displayed clothing  arranged behind large plate glass windows.  Storefronts became key opportunities for advertisements and to build brand recognition, and many of the great fashion houses painted or engraved their names on plaques or emblazoned them across balconies, as Béraud shows in the present work. While his contemporaries, the Impressionists, largely ignored the world of retail (perhaps afraid of the association with commercial advertising and fashion illustration so popular at the time), Béraud embraced the shops of the rue de la Paix, including the famous Maison Doucet and Maison Paquin, as an important part of his oeuvre of Parisian life (Tétart-Vittu, p. 210-4).  Indeed, both the men and women of Paris knew that public life required them to be on display, and they shopped and dressed with that mind. The responsibility was particularly burdensome for a woman, who might need to change as many as five or six times a day (Debra M. Manoff, Fashion in Impressionist Paris, London, 2012, p. 99). The inspiration provided by the shops both for artist and shopper alike was suggested by an American visitor to the city, who noted the immense diversity of “corsets and writing paper, artificial flowers and bicycle shoes, jewelry and bathing dresses” on display during a stroll through the boulevards and “all this, allied to the fact that the life and gaiety of the shopping streets of Paris is quite uniquely interesting and inspiring, and that the Parisians themselves are devoted to the habit of window gazing works wonders for the till of the man or woman behind the counter” (“Paris Shopkeepers,” The Constitution Atlanta, Georgia, May 27, 1900, p. 9).  Open even on Sundays, the shops became international tourist attractions, particularly for wealthy Americans.  Blanche McManus noted in her The American Woman Abroad of 1911, “it is even recounted that a fair American once spent the sum of three hundred and fifty thousand francs in half a day of choosing….  And yet it is said that the average price of the Paris-made gown is but seven-hundred francs” (Blanche McManus, The American Woman Abroad, New York, 1911, p. 238).  Given American interest in all things French fashion, it is fitting that before entering the collection of Margaret Thompson Biddle, Courses rue de la  Paix first belonged to John Roll McLean (1848-1916), owner and publisher of The Washington Post and the The Cincinnati Enquirer and his wife, the elegant socialite Emily Beale.