Lot n° 148
Estimation :
3000 - 4000
EUR
Alfred Roll (1846-1919)
Study of a female nude for "Woman and Bull".
circa 1885
Black pastel and white chalk on cream paper
45 x 42.5 cm.
Signed lower right: Roll
On the back, annotation in ink, circa 1900:
Cabinet de M. Roger-Milès/6, rue Clauzel
Provenance :
- Léon Roger, known as Léon Roger-Milès (1859-1928), art critic, Paris.
Our drawing is a study that will undoubtedly serve as the basis for one of the artist's masterpieces: "Étude" (best known by its later title "Femme et Taureau"), presented by the painter at the Salon of 1885, and now one of the masterpieces in the collection of 19th-century paintings at the National Museum de Bellas
Artes de Buenos Aires (oil on canvas, 241 x 277 cm., inv. 2671).
The initial title "Étude" (Study) hints at the artist's desire to free his painting from a systematic affiliation with great historical or mythological themes, whereas the critic Octave Mirbeau spontaneously commented on the work under the title "Pasiphaé" (Pasiphae).
Everything is nature in this painting: sunlight, wild vegetation, naked animals and humans, skin against hair.
The image, combining feminine sensuality and animal power, was commented on sympathetically by Paul Mantz: "The story is the simplest in the world: a naked girl is walking in a meadow; she meets a bull who has some time to waste, and she says a few friendly words to him. Standing and leaning against the charmed beast whose moist muzzle she caresses, her feet are half-hidden by the tall, rising grass; the leaves of the nearby trees cast the tremor of their light shadows on her luminous flanks; she's been running, her cheeks are flushed with rosy sweat, and she's laughing.
This is not the wife of Minos, who had other preoccupations - all we need to look for in this scene is youth, sunshine and painting, a painting which, without being perfect, is interesting and new." (Le Temps, May 10, 1885).
The painting, subsequently exhibited at the Exposition Universelle, was acquired by Paul Durand-Ruel, who then sold it to Argentine collector Aristóbulo del Valle for the sum of 12,000 francs.
Last but not least, this study was part of the collection of Léon Roger-Miles, a friend of Alfred Roll, to whom he dedicated a monograph in 1904 (Paris, A. Lahure).
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