Lot n° 59
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[Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918) Jacques-Émile... - Lot 59 - Ader
[Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918) Jacques-Émile BLANCHE (1861-1942). Claude Debussy, 1902; oil on canvas, signed, dated and dedicated lower right; 95 x 74 cm; framed.
Famous portrait of Debussy by Jacques-Émile Blanche.
It is dedicated, dated and signed lower right: "to Claude Debussy / 1902 / J.E. Blanche".
The canvas bears on the reverse the stamp of the supplier of "Toiles & couleurs", P. Foinet fils & Lefebvre. Félicien Cacan, Blanche's pupil and assistant, explained the technique used by Jacques-Émile Blanche for his portraits: "the painter's supplier [prepared] specially cut pieces of canvas coated with a bistre tone, which was to serve as a neutral 'valuable background'. On this background, the brush rubbing the shadows, drawing the accents and quickly applying the lights immediately obtains the "effect". This is the technique that was used for the Debussy" ("Jacques-Émile Blanche et la technique", in the catalogue of the Jacques-Émile Blanche exhibition in 1943).
Jacques-Émile Blanche painted this portrait of Claude Debussy in the year of the premiere of the opera Pelléas et Mélisande (30 April 1902). The painting was exhibited the following year at the Salon de la Société nationale des Beaux-Arts.
The painter and the musician would have met around 1894, at Pierre Louÿs' Wednesdays, or at Blanche Vasnier's, who was Debussy's muse for a time, and of whom Blanche made a beautiful pastel. Blanche recalls: "His extraordinary intellectual development, partly due to the readings recommended to him by Pierre Louÿs, struck us [...] The first performance of L'Après-Midi d'un Faune at the Harcourt concert revealed his poetic, dare I say pictorial, genius as an impressionist and a technician. ("Souvenirs sur Monet et Debussy", Le Figaro, 22 June 1932). He was one of those who had the privilege of hearing Debussy "whisper in his timbreless voice, so strange, the freshly written scenes of Pelléas. So, after the revelation of Pelléas et Mélisande at the Opéra-Comique, he wanted to paint a portrait of his friend, as he had done for many of his famous contemporaries.
Blanche painted a second portrait of Debussy, in bust form, a smaller replica of the first portrait: "The famous piece Jardins sous la pluie (Gardens in the rain), which is often repeated by pianists and which Claude dedicated to me, was inspired while I was passing through Auteuil, painting a study of his head in the open air. It was raining, the trees were turning green his matt skin which the rain seemed to varnish. This second portrait is a replica of the first; same pose but without hands: a sketch, an impression. (La Pêche aux souvenirs, Flammarion, 1949, p. 340). This second portrait is kept in Saint-Germain en-Laye, in the Maison Claude Debussy; it is captioned on the back: "Claude A. Debussy in the garden in the rain. Auteuil"; Debussy did not like it very much, finding that Blanche had given it "the appearance of a cottage cheese tired by the night" (letter to D.E. Ingrid). (letter to D.E. Inghelbrecht, 18 January 1914). Debussy dedicated his Jardins sous la pluie to Jaques-Émile Blanche in July 1903.
Exhibitions:
1903, Brussels, Salon triennal des Beaux-Arts, no. 86.
1903, Paris, Grand Palais, XIIIth Salon of the Société nationale des Beaux-Arts, n° 159.
1907, London, New Gallery, VIIth Exhibition of The International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, January-March, n° 207.
1910, Barcelona, Exhibition of old and modern portraits and drawings, n° 1558.
1943, Paris, Musée de l'Orangerie, Jacques-Émile Blanche, painter, n° 33.
1954, Dieppe Museum, Walter Sickert, Jacques-Émile Blanche, July 16-September 20, n° 58.
1962, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Claude Debussy, no. 156 (reproduced on the cover).
1984, Académie de France à Rome, Villa Médicis, Debussy et le Symbolisme, No. 35
2012, Paris, Musée de l'Orangerie, Debussy, la musique et les arts, 22 February-11 June, p. 186.
2012, Tokyo, Bridgestone Museum of Art, Ishibashi Foundation,
Debussy, la musique et les arts, 14 July-14 October, no. 15 (reproduced page 64).
Provenance:
Eugène Fromont Editions
Bibliography:
André Gauthier, Debussy, documents iconographiques, P. Cailler, 1952, plate 99.
François Lesure, Iconographie musicale, Debussy, Minkoff & Lattès, 1980, plate 83.
Anne Bertrand, "Debussy et Jacques-Émile
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