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Artist or Maker: Albert Edelfelt (1854-1905)

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Provenance: The artist's estate.
Sigurd Schildt, Helsinki.
O. Lundblom, Helsinki, by 1942.
Anonymous sale, Bukowskis, Stockholm, 19 April 1988, lot 409.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

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Literature: Letter from the artist to Professor B.O. Schauman dated Paris, 5 July 1886.
B. Hintze, Albert Edelfelt, Helsingfors, 1942, vol. I, pp. 208-212, vol. III, no. 444, p. 96.

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Notes: THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE SCANDINAVIAN COLLECTOR

Horace and Lydia (Horatius och Lydia) is the final study for a painting that was commissioned from Albert Edelfelt in Paris in 1886 by Jos Bulla for Knoedler & Co., New York for FFr 4,500. This version was painted in April and on the strength of it, Bulla commissioned the final work (Hintze 442), which was exhibited in Paris in 1888 but whose current whereabouts are unknown. Edelfelt also produced a later reprise of the subject in watercolour (Hintze 495) dated 1889, but the present work is the only known, surviving treatment of the subject in oil.

The subject presents the poet Horace (65BC - 8AD), leaning over a marble bench in a sun drenched flower garden, while Lydia reclines seductively on the bench, receiving his attentions. Lydia appears to be the first woman that Horace was more than casually involved in and appears in four Odes, I, 8, 13 and 25 and III, 9. In the first, Horace is merely an observer and describes the acute effect Lydia has on a friend of his. In the second, Horace is involved with her, jealously resenting any rival approach for her affections, while in the third, perhaps in recompense for past wrongs, the poet delivers a scathing reproach to her. The fourth sees him attempting reconciliation, although by this time he has already dismissed her as well past her prime.

In keeping with contemporary fashion for classically inspired subjects, the second ode, the young poet-lover wooing the renowned beauty, proved popular with late 19th century audiences. Edelfelt was perhaps inspired by one of the progenitors of this movement, the British artist Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Edelfelt may have first encountered Alma-Tadema's work during his student days in Antwerp but would have undoubtedly seen his 1882 exhibition at the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris. Edelfelt had expressed a profound admiration for the older man's use of soft and sumptuous lighting, although the classical motif is approached by Edelfelt in the present work with a freshness and immediacy often lacking in many of the sober depictions of the time.

This commission for Knoedler took Edelfelt to the French riviera for the first time; the first study for Horace and Lydia is dated Nice, March 1886. Edelfelt was an artist for whom attention to detail and painting from nature were at the very core of the creative process and it is for this reason that he wanted to make landscape and tree studies on true 'classical' land before starting on the painting itself. During his short stay, the vivid light and heavy atmosphere of the south had a profound effect on Edelfelt's palette and the few landscape paintings he produced at that time display a rich and shimmering light.

When he returned to Paris in April and began to paint the present version of Horace and Lydia, Edelfelt's experiences in the South of France enabled him to bathe his figures and the garden in which they sit in luxurious southern sunlight, while the rich blues of the Mediterranean shimmer in the background. Edelfelt's brushstroke had over the previous few years been influenced to a large extent by his friend Peder Severin Krøyer. Krøyer had had a decisive bearing in 1883-1884 on the development of Edelfelt's technique, which moved away from form and sculptural modelling towards a flowing and broad brushstroke more suited to the depiction of atmospheric effects and the transiency of light. In fact, the iconic and seminal work The Luxembourg Gardens (Ateneum, Helsinki), begun shortly after the inception of Horace and Lydia and completed in 1887, displays the same concentration on light effects as the present work. Edelfelt depicts direct sunlight only in the background of both works. Instead he is primarily interested in the overall atmosphere and luminosity imparted by the intense summer light as it filters through trees and picks out the whites of the figures' clothing and, in the present work, the marble bench. Edelfelt's skill in rendering a range of vivid colours throughout the substantially white areas is particularly evident in Horace and Lydia, where the apparent chromatic purity of the marble and the clothing belies his subtle but bold use of blues, yellows and pinks, rendered with quick, animated brushstrokes to create a vibrant atmosphere and a lively vision of sparkling light.

This painting is authenticated with the initials 'E.v.B' on the reverse by Ellan von Born, the artist's wife (née de la Chapelle), and witnessed by Leon Johansson and A. Tichanov.

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