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Dimensions: 77 by 55cm., 30½ by 21¾in.
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Provenance: Collection Doucet de Tillier
G. Paillet-Rotthier, Brussels
L. Rotthier (great-grandmother of the present owner, acquired at the beginning of the 20th century); thence by descent
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Literature: Gustave Van Zype, Les frères Stevens, Brussels, 1936, p. 108, no. 192 (erroneously catalogued as oil on canvas)
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Notes: PROPERTY FROM A BELGIAN PRIVATE COLLECTION
Painted circa 1870-1875.
Hailed by his contemporary, the artist Félicien Rops, as the 'best Belgian painter', Alfred Stevens displays in his oeuvre an affinity with the artistic techniques burgeoning in Paris at the end of the nineteenth century.
The medium of the present work reflects the continuing northern European propensity for painting on panel, while its palette and style betray the influence of the French Impressionists. The mahogany panel on which the work is painted enhances the lustrous richness of the fabrics, the silky textures of the flowers and the verdant greens of the garden. The studied composition of a fragrant beauty looking out at the viewer while leaning nonchalently on an ornate balustrade recalls Edouard Manet's celebrated Le balcon of 1868-69 (fig. 1).
Stevens and Manet had formed a close friendship in Paris and often played dominoes in the Café Riche on the Boulevard des Italiens. Stevens' admiration for Manet was reciprocated by the Frenchman who once remarked, 'Yesterday I saw at Hoschede's a superb Stevens, please pass on to him my sincere compliments'.
Similarly to Manet's paintings of Parisians, Stevens' depictions of elegantly dressed ladies in fashionable attire were a record of his times. Stevens was well connected and his close association with the highest echelons of Second Empire society meant that even such social luminaries as Princesses Mathilde and Metternich often lent him dresses for his models.
The Blue Ribbon has no particular narrative yet is not without context. The bouquet of roses placed in front of the girl and the vivid palette used to depict her dress, hat, parasol and the garden behind evoke the innocence of a young life about to enter adulthood. FIG. 1, Edouard Manet, Le Balcon, 1868-69, oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Digi ref 351D08101
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