Tamara de Lempicka’s unique style

Unveiled after nearly eighty years in the same collection, this portrait aroused passions. Boudin, Sérusier and Valtat accompanied this nod to Vermeer.

The high estimate was exceeded for this portrait of Jeune Hollandaise by Tamara de Lempicka (see Gazette no. 25), with €1 ,184 ,960 declared for this 1941 canvas. It was only right that connoisseurs should mobilize for this work : unpublished on the market, acquired in 1947 and kept by its owner’s descendants, it was exhibited at the Salon d’Automne in 1944. This portrait, of which a preparatory drawing is known, can be compared with a later version entitled La Hollandaise, executed around 1957 and now in the Lublin Museum in Poland. While referring to Johannes Vermeer’s La Laitière (1632-1675), the artist combines classical art and modern graphics to create his own artistic language. Transposing the spirit of her time, her model is staged in cinematic fashion, with characteristic sophistication. Shortly before this painting, Tamara de Lempicka had applied the same principle to the theme of Suzanne au bain, sculptural as a classical nude but coiffed in art deco fashion, a painting she had used in 1940 to promote her style, posing alongside it for a photographic portrait. Second place on the podium went to Louis Valtat (1869-1952), with a Vase de fleurs (93 x 68 cm) painted in 1927 and fetching €74 ,704 . Three dragonflies (46 x 55 cm) by Bernard Buffet (1928-1999), painted in oil on Masonite , were listed in the archives of the Maurice Garnier gallery and fetched €68 ,264 . Another change of style came with Les Bergers (71 x 54 cm) by Paul Sérusier (1864-1927), which fetched €56 ,672 . Eugène Boudin (1824-1898) followed close behind, at €54 ,096 , with his view of Fécamp, the port in foggy weather (37.5 x 46 cm), an oil on panel that takes us back in time to 1894.

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