circa 1905
oil on canvas
46.3 x 55 cm (18 1/4 x 21 3/4 in.)
signed lower right

PROVENANCE
Kaplan Gallery, London
Sotheby`s, Los Angeles, May 23, 1971, lot 31
Hammer Galleries, New York
Acquired from the above by present owner

EXHIBITED
Kaplan Gallery, A Selection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings, Watercolours, Pastels and Drawings from the Collection of Kaplan Gallery, London, 1966, no. 57

LITERATURE
Denise Bazetoux, Henri Lebasque, Catalogue Raisonne - Tome I, 1988, p. 199 (illustrated)

LOT NOTES
Henri Lebasque, a painter of the French Post-Impressionism movement, is best known as the founding member of the Salon d'Automne along Henri Matisse. Lebasque`s influences, which he adopted into his own fluid and vibrant style, ranged from Vuillard and Renoir to Seurat and the Fauvists.

Like many modern artists, Lebasque was particularly fond of domestic interiors, painted here mainly alla prima with swift gestural brushstrokes - a marked departure from his earlier Pointillistic style. Created during a formative period of the artist`s development, this work exhibits a great interest in the interplay of light and color, which would become a hallmark of his oeuvre. With few sharp contours, Lebasque`s modeling is almost entirely chromatic, seen especially in the warm yellow highlights and blue-grey shadows. The faces of the two girls are all but obscured, with only subtle indications of their physiognomies. Interestingly, as a student at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Lebasque specialised in portraiture, and executed many portraits during the course of his career. However, as his style changed in the mid-1910s, Lebasque turned to more flattened forms, filled with broad areas of color - an idea we see the artist working through in this particular canvas, where remnants of a primarily additive approach (such as in the faces and hands of the two girls) border quick applications of reds, whites, and browns.