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Dimensions: measurements 39 1/2 by 32 in. alternate measurements 100 by 81.3 cm

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Provenance: Dr. Arthur Hahnloser, Winterthur (acquired from the artist, June 1918)
Private Collection, Bern, circa 1937
Fabien Boulakia, Paris (sold: Sotheby's, New York, November 14, 1985)
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

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Exhibited: Neuchâtel, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Manguin, 1964, no. 122, illustrated

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Literature: Pierre Cabanne, Henri Manguin, Neuchâtel, 1964, no. 131, p. 165, illustrated p. 137 (dated 1918)
Lucille and Claude Manguin, Henri Manguin, catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre peint, Neuchâtel, 1980, no. 494, illustrated p. 188

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Notes: Following the death of Gustave Moreau, the beloved teacher of Manguin, Albert Marquet and Henri Matisse, the three young artists sought to pool their resources, constructing a makeshift studio in the garden of Manguin's home at 61 rue Boursault. The three worked together, intermittently hosting other avant-garde artists, and during the winter of 1904-05 hired a model from whom they each drew and painted from life. According to artist André Dunoyer de Segonzac, "The Three M's were talked about incessantly at the beginning of the century, three young men noted for their independence of their art. Matisse, Marquet, Manguin..." (A. Segonzac in Pierre Cabane, Henri Manguin, 1964, p. 53). Singled out as the strongest of a new crop of artists showing at the Salon d'automne in 1904 by the critic Louis Vauxcelles, Manguin, Marquet, Matisse and Camoin banded together, "The four of them worked that autumn with Jean Puy in Manguin's collapsible studio behind the apartment on the rue Boursault. Marquet and Manguin responded once again to Matisse's Divisionist enthusiasm: all three painted each others and their nude model with a gaiety and gusto that owed more to Luce's slapdash style as Divisionist than to Signac's rigor. Winter was the season of intrigue, cabals and furious lobbying behind the scenes as different art-world factions drummed up support on the various committees that would control who showed what and how at next year's exhibitions. Charles Guérin enlisted Matisse in December for the Salon d'Automne's planning meeting, instructing him to bring Manguin, Marquet and any other sympathizers he could muster" (Hilary Spurling, The Unknown Matisse, A Life of Henri Matisse: The Early Years, 1869-1908, New York, 1998, p. 295). Writing of the three artists, Hilary Spurling notes, "The one lasting gain he (Matisse) brought away from the school was his alliance with two younger boys, Henri Manguin and Albert Marquet, who were the first close friends he made among painters outside his home circle. From now on the three worked side by side, swapping advice, criticizing and comparing their respective canvases, urging each other on, indoors and out, in Paris and on the Mediterranean coast, throughout the struggles that convulsed the French art world, and painting itself, in the years to leading up to and away from the Fauve summer of 1905" (Hilary Spurling, The Unknown Matisse, A Life of Henri Matisse: The Early Years, 1869-1908, New York, 1998, p. 80).
Charles Terrasse writes, "A painting by Manguin is a concert of strong colors in which a true red dominates red-oranges, purple violets, deep blues, dark greens, and golden yellows. Lines, shapes, everything is strong. Everything is striking. It is an exalted painting that warms the heart and gives joy" (in Jean-Louis Ferrier, The Fauves: The Reign of Colour, Paris, 1992, p. 132). Painted in 1915, the present work evokes the strong Fauve palette used by the "Three M's" a decade earlier. Incorporating vivid pinks, reds and green highlights, Manguin celebrates the sensual grace of the female nude; her Venus-like curves are accentuated by vibrant pigments. The playful incorporation of the mirror allows the viewer to focus on sensitively captured surface tones of the model, whose smoothness and curvilinear forms are in harmony with her surroundings. Fig. 1 Henri Manguin, Lausanne, 1916