WOMAN by FELIX VALLOTTON

by Brice Langlois, Art Historian

FÉLIX VALLOTTON (Lausanne 1865 - Paris, 1925)

Naked woman lying on a bed, 1911

Oil on canvas.
Signed et dated (lower right corner) “F.VALLOTTON.II”.

Height 114 cm. Width 162,5 cm.

Provenance :
- Vallotton Estate, Paris.
- Rodrigues-Henriques, Paris.
- J.Rodrigues-Henriques Estate, Paris.
- Sotheby’s, Zurich, 13.11.1982, n°73, repr.
- Sotheby’s, Zurich, 26.11.1983, n°67, repr.

Bibliography :
- Marina Ducrey, "Félix Vallotton œuvre peint", 5 continents éditions, Milan, 2005, Tome III, n°886.
- Félix Vallotton, « Livre de raison, liste des œuvres, peinture et gravures, faites dans l’ordre chronologique à partir de 1885 », in Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler, Félix Vallotton et ses amis, Paris, A. Sedrowski, 1936, Lrz 833: “Femme nue couchée sur le coté, de face, les jambes repliées, sur un lit avec matelas rayé gris (T100)”.
- Arsène Alexandre, « Exposition F. Vallotton », Le Figaro, 30 janvier 1912, p. 5.
- N.s, L’Action Nationale, 10.03.1912.
- N.s, L’Art Décoratif, 1912.

Exhibition:
Galerie Eugène Druet, "Exposition de peintures de Félix Vallotton", Paris, 1912, n°2, “Femme couchée”

Swiss painter Félix Vallotton was an unusual artist, favoring lines at a time when “masters of colors” such as the Impressionists and the Fauvists were imposing themselves. Thin lines circle solid patches of color, such as in this work presented in 1912 at Gallery Druet. Painted one year before this exhibition, this oil on canvas undoubtedly refers to Old European Masters such as Titian, Tintoretto, Giorgione or Velazquez. With this painting, Vallotton pays tribute to past artists without compromising his own contemporary requirements. The striped mattress, green lacquered door and brown painted wall set this scene in an early 20th century home interior. All of these elements enclose the composition, providing no perspective to the outside of the room, while the model in the foreground looks away, perhaps as a sign of modesty.

Unlike some of his earlier (1904-1908) works which were inspired by mythology, the woman depicted here is not idealized. Female nudes are a major theme in Vallotton’s body of work, with over five hundred paintings depicting them at times realistically and at other times in an idealized way, like ancient Venuses. Our painting does not show an allegorical Venus but a woman of her time whom the painter simply offers to view as if he were playing the Ancients against the Moderns. In 1912, French newspaper Le Figaro astutely acknowledged the “noble character” of Vallotton’s painting, praising the “nudes that reach, one could say, in their nudity, a classical and austere line but are nevertheless works of art in tune with the times.”