Henri Edmond Cross

Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired by 1910)

Eberhard Freiherr von Bodenhausen, Munich

Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris

Karl Ernst Osthaus, Hagen

M. Vollmoeller, Switzerland

Jean Dufresne, Paris

Knoedler & Co., New York (acquired from the above on September 11, 1951)

Fine Arts Associates, New York (acquired from the above on December 19, 1952)

Harris Goldstein, Philadelphia (acquired from the above and sold: Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, May 2, 1956, lot 84)

Fine Arts Associates, New York (acquired at the above sale)

Private Collection, New York (acquired from the above)

Thence by descent

Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Henri-Edmond Cross, oeuvres de la dernière période, 1910, no. 34

Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, La Faune, 1910, no. 79

Brussels, La Libre Esthétique, Rétrospective Henri-Edmond Cross, 1911, no. 50

Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, La Montagne, 1911, no. 13

Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Henri-Edmond Cross, 1913, no. 45

Lucie Cousturier, "H. E. Cross" in L'Art Décoratif, Paris, 1913, illustrated p. 121

Adolphe Delvaux, "H. E. Cross" in La Plume, March 15, 1913, p. 612

Félix Fénéon, "Le Dernier Carnet de H E Cross I" in Bulletin de la Vie Artistique, May 15, 1922, p. 229

"Le Dernier Carnet de H E Cross II" in Bulletin de la Vie Artistique, June 1, 1922, pp. 254-56

Lucie Cousturier, H. E. Cross, Paris, 1932, illustrated pl. 21

Isabelle Compin, H. E. Cross, Paris, 1964, no. 216, illustrated p. 321

Andrea Pophanken & Felix Billeter, eds., Die Moderne und ihr Sammler, Berlin, 2001, p. 145

Pérouse, Le Campanile de Santa Maria Nuova is one of a small group of paintings that Cross produced in the winter of 1908 inspired by a visit to Italy in the summer of the same year. The artist’s biographer Isabelle Compin recalled that Cross was particularly seduced by Perugia. In a postcard to fellow-artist Charles Angrand dating from July 1908, he wrote of “the stormy skies over the Apennines. The rose-coloured campaniles over a vast landscape drawn by Rembrandt …”, adding in another letter sent to Maximilien Luce the following month: “In that town found at a height that dominates great valleys, towards the Apennines, there is something for even the most conflicting desires. In its views, intersected in the mid-distance by pink or orange campaniles, the lovers of colour, scenery, luminous atmosphere find much to satisfy their tastes…” (quoted in I. Compin, Op. cit., 1964, p. 322, translated from French). 

Just as Cross had been seduced by the light and color of the Mediterranean coast following his move there in 1891, so too in Italy he found much to inspire him. The works he produced in the months following his stay there, which are among his last paintings, show him delighting in not only the vibrant hues and dazzling light of this part of central Italy, but also in the physical surroundings of the region’s medieval towns. It provided the perfect setting for him to continue the scientific exploration of color that he had pioneered along with his fellow Neo-Impressionists. In Pérouse, Le Campanile de Santa Maria Nuova  he takes the distinctive pink stone of the campanile of the church of Santa Maria Nuova, and renders it in a splendid blaze of color that is offset against a tapestry of blues, greens and purples. Using the small, deft brushstrokes that characterize his later work, Cross perfectly captures the contrasts between the cool of the shade and the shimmering heat of the sunlit roofs of Perugia. 

The work has an illustrious provenance, having once belonged to Karl Ernst Osthaus. Osthaus was a committed and enlightened patron of the avant-garde, building a large art collection that ranged from early works by the German Expressionists to examples by the leading French artists of his day. The collection was initially housed in the museum he founded in his birthplace Hagen; following his death it was acquired by the city of Essen, becoming what is now the Folkwang Essen. It remains among the foremost collections of early twentieth century art.