Georges de Feure

Probaly Collection Albert Brimo de la Roussilhe (1914-1990), as per an inscription on the reverse of the sheet;

Anonymous sale, M^e Pierre Cornette de Saint-Cyr, Paris, Drouot Rive Gauche, 14 June 1976, lot 43;

Where acquired by Mlle J.;

Thence by descent.

I. Millman, Georges De Feure, Maître du Symbolisme et de l’Art Nouveau, Courbevoie 1992, pp. 84-85 and 87.

Tokyo, Odakyu Grand Gallery and Osaka, Daimaru Museum, Umeda, Georges de Feure, July-September 1990, no. 6;

Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, Georges de Feure, 1868-1943, November 1993-February 1994, no. 11;

Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Musée départemental Maurice Denis and Gingins, Fondation Neumann, Georges de Feure. Du symbolisme à l’art nouveau (1890-1905), March–September 1995, no. 10.

The artist and his model is a fascinating self-portrait of Georges de Feure, in which the artist portrays himself in the landscape of his interior life.  

In the catalogue for the exhibition that he dedicated to the artist in 1995, Ian Millman points out the resemblance between the background of this painting and a painting by Emile Bernard, The battle between the knights (present location unknown). In both these paintings, a huge wave has just broken against a cliff, at the top of which a castle perches. The similarity is troubling and there is no knowing whether this is a coincidence or whether, for whatever reason, he consciously copied this element from another artist.

This is not the artist’s first appearance in one of his own compositions, but unlike in previous cases where he drew himself as a nightmarish caricature, here he is at peace and at work. He shows himself surrounded by his favourite themes in his teeming universe, in a synthesized imaginary landscape of fantasy. Nearby stands his model, a beautiful, seductive and distant woman; in the foreground there are flowers, the decorative motif that so inspired him. The portrait is not only psychological: the artist also takes the opportunity to display his skills, his sense of composition, his highly distinctive drawing and of course his personal watercolour technique, perfected in the early 1900s while he was still working at L'Art Nouveau Bing.