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Artist or Maker: Eugène Carrière (French, 1849-1906)

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Description: La toilette
signed 'Eugène Carrière' (lower left)
oil on canvas, unframed
23 1/4 x 29 3/4 in. (59 x 75.5 cm.)

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Published: E. Faure, Eugène Carrière: peintre et lithographe, Paris, 1908, (illustrated opposite p. 40).

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Notes: Eugène Carrière viewed painting as a visual means of expressing the human soul. He espoused a belief that in order to experience fully the human condition it was essential to welcome all the burdens and sacrifices of others. Of a deeply sensitive nature, he expressed an intense compassion for the miseries and misfortunes of his fellow man.

'In the short space that separates birth and death, man can scarcely choose what path to follow, and scarcely has he become conscious of himself than the final menace appears. (...) I see other men in me and I find myself in them; what impassions me is dear to them.' (E. Carrière, Ecrits et lettres choisies, Paris, 1970, pp. 11-12).

If one sought a quintessential word for human compassion and sacrifice, a single experience to contain the idea of love and passion, that word would be motherhood. In La Toilette, Sophie Desmonceaux, Carrière's beloved wife, is portrayed gently washing her younger daughter whilst Elise, Carrière's eldest child, is helping to hold a washbowl. Here, despite the simplicity of the situation, Carrière is depicting something far deeper than a scene of everyday life. The emotional and physical bond between a mother and her two children becomes the image of a universal family; a symbol of humankind. Whenever Carrière looks at his offspring, he does it with tenderness and the same passionate love as a master of a very different period, Rembrandt. Carrière perceived all mankind in each individual he painted, using his relatives and friends as models for this purpose. Every portrait becomes the representation of life itself. Carrière paints not just the visible world of forms and nature, but also the immaterial, disembodied essence of human passions and sorrows, which seem to emerge from the surrounding environment.

La Toilette exemplifies the extent to which light is the very first element of creation for Carrière, source of energy and life: balancing the darkness, light penetrates into the shadowy and engulfing atmosphere of the room, imbuing the three figures with a new lively force. In this way, Carrière gives his work a sense of volume and plasticity very close to that of August Rodin, one of his closest friends. Moreover, Carrière's typical earth-toned palette, as well as the application of the thinned pigments with a rigid brush, leave the striations and texture of the canvas visible, a method very close to that used by the Old Masters.

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

The authenticity of this work has kindly been confirmed by Véronique Milin-Dumesnil and will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné Eugène Carrière's Paintings.