VITTORIO MATTEO CORCOS | The Three Aces

Sale: Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, May 14, 1976, lot 221, illustrated
Richard Green, London
Acquired in Tokyo circa 2000

Original unlined condition. There surface presents well, aside from a few very minor scattered pin dots of discoloration. The surface could be brightened and the colors would be given more depth with a fresh varnish. Under UV: varnish fluoresces green unevenly. Retouching, both broadly and finely applied, is visible on the seated woman, including her face; and on the standing figure's chest, face and hand. There is an additional area of retouching to the left of the standing figure's head and inpainting to address prior frame abrasion is visible along the left and right upper edges.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Originally from the Italian port city of Livorno, Vittorio Matteo Corcos showed his aptitude as an artist from a young age. At sixteen he was admitted into an advanced position at Florence’s Academia di Belle Arti, followed by study in Naples with the artist Domenico Morelli, who encouraged his move to Paris in 1880. Upon arriving in Paris, Corcos quickly introduced himself to the Italian expatriate artists Giuseppe de Nittis and Giovanni Boldini. Both artists would influence Corcos greatly, and De Nittis hosted regular salons which allowed Corcos to meet such luminaries as Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Gustave Caillebotte and, perhaps most consequentially, his dealer, Adolphe Goupil. By 1891, the year The Three Aces was painted, Corcos had returned to Italy with an established reputation and a Parisian dealer.  Goupil was a savvy commercial enterprise, and decorative prints and paintings of enticing young women was one of their specialties. In a recent review of the Corcos retrospective at the Palazzo Zabarella in Padua, Roderick Conway Morris describes what The Three Aces makes evident: "technical skills in reproducing luxurious women’s fashions and the milky-white and subtly blushing complexions of the young ladies wearing them made him an ideal supplier… Corcos was also adept at infusing these paintings with a fresh-faced sexuality without exceeding the bounds of bourgeois decorum, and Goupil admiringly described him as a painter who was 'chastely impure;" (Morris, "A Reassessment of Corcos, Sensuality and Subtlety Intact," New York Times, October 7, 2014).

While Corcos enjoyed wide artistic acclaim and great financial success in his lifetime, his contributions to art during the Belle Époque remain somewhat overlooked outside of his native Italy. He had a reputation for being the "peintres des jolies femmes" (a moniker given to him by The Times correspondent Henri De Blowitz that followed him for his entire career), but he also produced an idiosyncratic body of work which includes psychologically rich interpretations of the world and people around him.