Spécial A propos de l'artiste
TITRE DU ŒUVRES D'ART Lady in black
DIMENSIONS ŒUVRES D'ART Height : 45,5
Largeur : 36,5
MATÉRIELPeinture à l'huile (Huile sur canevas)
CHRONOLOGIE
VÉRIFICATION DE L'AUTHENTICITÉ Non vérifié
Provenance
Private collection, Athens.
Exhibited
Athens, National Gallery - Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Symeon Sabbides (1859-1927), March 20 - June 26, 2006, no. 84 (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, p. 73).
Literature
M. Kasimati, Symeon Sabbides, His Life and Work, Adam-Pergamos editions, Athens 2006, no. 154, pp. 356 (listed), 195 (illustrated).
Enveloped in a beautiful black ensemble, nobly posed and gracefully responsive to the upright motifs of the faded Pompeian red or oriental rug-like background wall against which she is set, this almost Sargent-like beauty is an epitome of pensive elegance. Her detached stance - turning away from the viewer and seemingly drawn to her own world - is strongly reminiscent of Gysis's figure of a black-clad woman tucked in the right hand side of his News of victory, 1871. (Neue Pinakothek collection, Munich). As noted by Dr. M. Kasimati, who prepared Sabbides's monograph, "there is no doubt that Sabbides was familiar with this historic painting, and his own painting could be considered a poignant comment on it, stripped of any kind of high rhetoric and drama. Closer to the work's true aesthetic content is a series of youthful pencil drawings by Georges Seurat (1859-1891) portraying hasty, elegant Parisiennes, their enigmatic figures clad in black. Compare Woman with black coat, c. 1882, in the National Gallery of London (Berggruen collection)."1
1. M. Kasimati, Symeon Sabbides, His Life and Work [in Greek], Adam-Pergamos editions, Athens 2006, p. 194.