Lot n° 266
Estimation :
15000 - 20000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 74 240EUR
Maurice DENIS (Granville, 1870 - Paris, 1943) - Lot 266
Maurice DENIS (Granville, 1870 - Paris, 1943)
The Intrusion, circa 1891
Pastel on paper mounted on cardboard.
Signed and dedicated on the reverse: "Maurice Denis to Mr. Hirsch".
52,1 x 20,1 cm
Provenance:
- Former Charles-Henri Hirsch (1870-1948) collection, poet, playwright and novelist.
- Former collection Pierre Moussa (1922-2019), Paris.
- Anonymous sale, Pierre Bergé et Associés, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 23 October 2019, n° 20.
A certificate from Madame Claire Denis will be given to the buyer.
L'Intruse is a drama in three acts by Maurice Maeterlinck, written in 1890. The play was first performed on May 20, 1891 at the Théâtre d'Art founded by Paul Fort, in a staging by Lugné-Poe. The sets were by Vuillard and the program was illustrated by Sérusier. Our pastel represents Ursule, one of the three daughters of the drama announcing the tragedy to come.
Our pastel can be compared to a drawing, a draft frontispiece for the program of the play, which was published in La Plume on September 1, 1891. The figure of Ursula with her sinuous silhouette is similar to the one on the left in the draft (preserved in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam), where one can recognize the three sisters with the father and uncle on the right and the blind grandfather seated in the background. Maurice Denis made a painting of it (120 x 80 cm) which he later destroyed, keeping the fragment of the Two Sisters (Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum). Our pastel is probably an intermediate preparation for this lost painting. Maurice Denis was an admirer of Maeterlinck, as was his wife. He reported in his Diary in October 1891, about his wife Marthe reading La Princesse Maleine created by Maeterlinck in 1890: "She rereads La Princesse Maleine until two o'clock at night. She is pale, irritated, caressing...". The evocative power of Maeterlinck's plays seemed to Denis to be in perfect correspondence with his characteristic calm and sinuous lines.
Our drawing is dedicated to the poet Charles Henri Hirsch (1870-1948), who was a close friend of Paul Fort.
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