Lot n° 29
Estimation :
1500 - 2000
EUR
Charles Edmond DAUX (1850-1937) - Lot 29
Charles Edmond DAUX (1850-1937)
Portrait of the painter Maurice Poirson
Oil on canvas 21.5 x 27.5 cm
Signed and dated upper left: CE Daux 1879
This painting is a fine testimony to the sociability that bound together the small milieu of painters in Belle Époque Paris.
Charles Edmond Daux and Maurice Poirson (1850-1882) were comrades in Alexandre Cabanel's studio. In 1879, Daux made a landmark trip to Spain, accompanied by another fellow student of Cabanel's studio, Armand-Eugène Bach (1850-1921), and a young prodigy who had recently left Carolus Duran's studio: John Singer Sargent (1856-1925). It is likely that Daux introduced Sargent to his friend Poirson on his return to Paris. In 1883, Sargent moved to a studio at 41, boulevard Berthier, owned by Maurice Poirson's half-brother: Paul Poirson (1836-1895).
Family tradition has it that in 1884, with his finances at half-mast following the scandal caused by his portrait of Madame X (New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 16.53), Sargent had to paint the portrait of Mademoiselle Suzanne Poirson (Private collection, Christie's sale, 2/12/2009, lot 84), then the following year, of Madame Paul Poirson (Detroit Institute of Art, inv. 73.41).
Our portrait, with its dark red background, is reminiscent of the same heavy draperies visible in Velazquez's portraits, which Sargent remembered for the portrait of Susanna, but also, earlier, in 1881, for the famous portrait of Dr Pozzi (Los Angeles, Hammer Museum, inv. unknown).
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