Jean Béraud

Richard Green, London
Acquired from the above

London, Ferrers Gallery, Marcel Proust and his Friends, 1971, no. 1 (as La Sortie de midinettes)

Patrick Offenstadt, Jean Béraud. The Belle Epoque: A Dream of Times Gone By, Cologne, 1999, p. 122, no. 77, illustrated p. 123

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work is in excellent condition. The architecture, figures, and foreground are all more or less untouched. A few spots of retouching beneath the signature in the lower right are visible under ultraviolet light. Some tiny spots of retouching have also been added in the sky; these are designed to "tidy up" the work more than to address any real damage. The painting should be hung in its current state.
"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 his pursuit of an active composition and naturalistic image, Jean Béraud was known to sit in his carriage and observe the scenes of the city with his sketchbook in hand, a habit shared by his contemporaries Jean-François Raffaëlli and Giusseppe De Nittis. In L’Arrivée des midinettes, Béraud has placed himself at the Place de l’Opéra and captured a bustling afternoon where smartly dressed midinettes greet each other as they march across the crowded plaza. He described this very public process in a letter: "you have to vanquish your feelings of artistic modesty so you can work among people who take the most irritating kind of interest in what you're doing. If you cannot overcome your disgust, you will end up locking yourself away in your house, and painting a woman or a still life, like all your colleagues. For some artists, that was all they needed to produce a masterpiece. But I believe that today, we need something different" (as quoted in Offenstadt, p. 10). In compositions like the present work, it is clear that Béraud has an affectionate relationship with his subject, which singularly allows him to create such a compelling and dynamic tableau.

The seamstresses, dressmakers and apprentices, known as midinettes, played a vital role in the burgeoning worker’s rights movement among women in Paris at the turn of the century. The present work, completed in 1901, surely commemorates their involvement in the labor strike of February of that year, which stemmed from the workshops around the Opéra, Boulevard Haussmann and the Place Vendôme. From the elite dress-making shops of the rue de la Paix, the strike spread rapidly through Sentier and to the crowded sweatshops of Montmartre. The strike had wide appeal and captured the public imagination, as the boisterous striking workers created a festival-like atmosphere in the streets of Paris (Judith Coffin, The Politics of Women’s Work, Princeton, 1996, p. 178). February was a significant time of the year in the fashion industry, when international clothiers came to Paris to see the season’s trends. Tailors, assistants, and apprentices in high end dress shops asserted their rights in the workplace, putting forth their own agenda and demands, such as wage policy, labor legislation, and women’s role in the union. resisting the exploitative culture put forth by those in charge of workshops. Activist and actress Marguerite Durand’s publication, La Fronde, run entirely by women, reported on the strikes almost daily throughout the month of February, encouraging women to join the movement.  From across the city Midinettes were called to stand at the podium of the Bourse du Travail, the Parisian labor exchange, and animatedly vow to continue the fight (fig. 1) (Coffin, p. 177).

As a devoted observer of modern life in an ever changing metropolis, it is no surprise that Béraud recorded this historic moment. His midinettes stride confidently, holding up their fashionable skirts to avoid the rain soaked pavement, greeting men with a firm handshake or by accepting an affectionate kiss. Béraud has captured every detail of their colorful chapeaux, piled high with flowers and feathered adornments, as well as distinctive architecture of Garnier’s Opéra, which stands as a timeless symbol of the old city in contrast to the social change brewing below.