JACQUES-ÉMILE BLANCHE (1861-1942) Fan project,... Lot 31

JACQUES-ÉMILE BLANCHE (1861-1942) Fan project, 1887 Watercolor and gouache on paper Signed and dated '87' lower left Watercolor and gouache on paper; signed and dated '87' lower left 63 X 30 CM - 24 3/4 X 11 3/4 IN. - We thank Mrs. Jane Roberts for the information provided in the writing of this sheet. - BIBLIOGRAPHY Jane Roberts and Muriel Molines, Jacques-Émile Blanche 1861-1942. Catalog raisonné, online (www.jeblanche-catalogue.com), reproduced and described under n° RM1519. - RELATED WORKS Jacques-Émile Blanche (1861-1942) Henriette Chabot au mouchoir, 1886, oil on canvas signed and dated lower right, 73 x 92 cm. Location unknown. This work is listed in the online catalog raisonnée under number RM58. Jacques-Émile Blanche (1861-1942) Fan Project, 1888, watercolor on paper signed lower right, 15.5 x 57.5 cm. Musée du Louvre. This work is listed in the online catalog raisonnée under number RM711. - "In the 1880s, the young Jacques-Émile Blanche (1861-1942) was in the grip of the 'Japonisme' fashion like his friends Whistler, Degas, Forain and Helleu. For Blanche, this translated into fan-shaped compositions, of which we know only a small number that he painted between 1884 and 1888. In gouache and watercolor, these works have nothing 'decorative' about them as in Henri Guérard's, for example, but instead the painter composes a realistic scene in the complicated format of the fan, often adapted from another painting. Here, for example, we see two 'portraits', probably done from memory, of his favorite model Henriette Chabot, who had posed for Manet, and whom he had already painted twice in 1886, this time from life. For this fan, he places both Henriettes, in white studio dresses, on the same graphic black bench, and the delicate cameo of whites is a thinly veiled tribute to his 'idol' Whistler." Jane Roberts