Sale: 436 / Modern Art I, Dec. 10. 2016 in Munich Lot 242

 

242
Louis Valtat
L'Enfant dans la baignoire (Madame Valtat et son fils dans la baignoire), 1909.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 30,000 / $ 32,400
Sold:
€ 37,500 / $ 40,500

(incl. surcharge)
L'Enfant dans la baignoire (Madame Valtat et son fils dans la baignoire). 1909.
Oil on canvas.
Valtat 2868. Monogrammed lower right. 81 x 100 cm (31.8 x 39.3 in).
The art collector and patron Oscar Ghez de Castelnuovo (1905 - 1998) began a vast collection after WW II and was co-founder of the Musée du Petit Palais in Geneva.

PROVENANCE: Galerie Romanet, Paris.
Oscar Ghez de Castelnuovo, Geneva (acquired in 1957).
Petit Palais, Geneva (sold after 1995).
Private collection.
Private collection (acquired in 2001).

EXHIBITION: Valtat et ses amis: Albert André, Comoin, Magnin, Puy, Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archeologie, Besançon, August-September 1964, no. 24 with illu.
Autour du Fauvisme: Valtat et ses amis, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Charleroi, 25 November, 1967 - 01 January, 1968, no. 76 (verso of stretcher with remains of a label)
L'Enfance vue par les grands maîtres, Musée du Petit Palais, Geneva, 1979.
Die gesellschaftliche Wirklichkeit der Kinder in der Bildenden Kunst, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Berlin, 16 December, 1979 - 10 September, 1980, no. 364.
XXXIIe Salon de Montrouge, Centre Culturel et Artistique de Montrouge, Montrouge 06 May - 09June, 1987, with illu. in catalog.
Valtat et les Fauves, Musée du Petit Palais, Geneva,1992.
Louis Valtat, Retrospective, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux, 19 May - 27 August, 1995, no. 70 (verso of stretcher with a label).
Valtat: Indépendant et précurseur, Musée Paul Valéry, Sète, 29 January - 07 May, 2011, no. 38, with color illu. in catalog.

LITERATURE: Raymond Cogniat, Louis Valtat, Neuchatel, 1963, no.63, illu. on p. 187.

Louis Valtat's early works show a certain closeness to Neo-Impressionism and the Nabis, however, an unusual and innovative brushstroke and coloring soon indicated a new stylistic tendency that would make him an important trendsetter of Fauvism. Our picture is a wonderful example thereof: The charming bathing scene, in which Valtat immortalized Jean, his only beloved child who was born in 1908, is far more than just an intimate and atmospheric picture. Owed to the innovative use of section and perspective, pattern and color, the artist creates a virtuos interplay of autonomous color fields that put him at the side of the Fauvists.



242
Louis Valtat
L'Enfant dans la baignoire (Madame Valtat et son fils dans la baignoire), 1909.
Oil on canvas
Estimate:
€ 30,000 / $ 32,400
Sold:
€ 37,500 / $ 40,500

(incl. surcharge)