Footnotes

Provenance:
Property from the collection of Mrs Alexander Morten, Boston
Purchased from the estate of the above by the present owner

Literature:
In a letter to Kahlil dated October 2, 1912, Mary Haskell refers to the artist's "unfinished portrait" of Fredericka Walling (nee Haskell), Kahlil Gibran: Man and Poet, Suheil Bushruei

"Let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls"
- Khalil Gibran


Bonhams have the rare privilege of presenting the second and last work by Kahlil Gibran from the estate of Mr and Mrs Alexander Morten; depicting Federicka Haskell, the sister of Gibran's mentor, patron and closest friend, Mary Haskell, the unfinished portrait exhibits all the grace, finesse and technical excellence that characterized Gibran's ouevre

Best known for literary works including The Prophet and The Madman, Kahlil Gibrain was born in Besharri, Lebanon before immigrating with his family to Boston's South End in 1895. After completing his literary and artistic education in Beirut and Paris he returned permanently to his adoptive home, The United States, whilst remaining a Lebanese citizen till the end of his life.

His magnum opus, The Prophet, made up of 26 prose poems delivered as sermons by a wise seer called Al Mustapha, has never been out of print since it was first published in 1923. A perennial classic, it has been translated into more than fifty language and is a staple of international best-seller list, its success has been so resounding that after Shakespeare and Lao Tzu, Gibrain is considered the world best selling poet, with over nine million copies of The Prophet having been sold in America alone.

Gibrain's immense popularity lies in the accessibility and simplicity of his verse, and his ability to touch upon a wide array of existential questions such as love, family, society and death with surprising lucidity. Gibrain's vision of the world, much like Ghandi's, was pluralistic and egalitarian, uncoloured by the dogma of religion, and unaffected by the restrictions of orthodoxy; this non-judgmental, syncretic form of spirituality proved hugely influential and found him a universal audience that allowed his work to transcend national and ethnic divides.

As an artist, Gibrain possessed a talent and sophistication arguably on a par with his literary works, and his fluency in both the art of the brush and the written word is what earned him the accolade, attributed to Rodin, of the "William Blake of the 20th Century"

In 1908, Gibrain travelled to Paris and enrolled in the popular atelier of Rodolphe Julian, through which Matisse, Bonnard, and Léger, among others, had also passed. He also attended classes at the École des Beaux-Arts and studied under Pierre Marcel Béronneau, a well-known painter and disciple of Gustave Moreau, It is here where he was schooled in symbolist and aestheticisim, prominent 19th century art movements that would have a marked influence on much of his subsequent work.

In Paris as in later life, Gibrain, Gibran mixed with the intellectual elites of his time, including figures such as WB Yeats, Carl Jung and August Rodin, all of whom he also painted. His artistic work drew many accolades and in Paris, Gibran succeeded in being invited to participate in one of the most prestigious annual exhibitions, the Salon d'automne, which counted Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, and Paul Gauguin among its alumni.

Gibran and the Haskell Family

Gibran held his first art exhibition of his drawings in 1904 in Boston, at Day's studio. During this exhibition, Gibran met Mary Elizabeth Haskell, a respected headmistress ten years his senior. The two formed an important friendship that lasted the rest of Gibran's life. The nature of their romantic relationship remains obscure; while some biographers assert the two were lovers but never married because Haskell's family objected,other evidence suggests that their relationship never was physically consummated.

Haskell later married another man, but then she continued to support Gibran financially and to use her influence to advance his career. She became his editor, and introduced him to Charlotte Teller, a journalist, and Emilie Michel (Micheline), a French teacher, who accepted to pose for him as a model and became his close friends.

Gibran was a close friend of the Haskell family, and Fredericka, one of Mary's sisters, is documented as the subject of the present painting

In an artistic style inspired by the mystical paintings of Eugene Carrière, Gibran's dream-like solitary figures constantly remind us of the theme of spiritual unity that flows through his writing. The artist who "kept Jesus in one half of his bosom and Muhammad in the other," believed that a universal "religion of the heart" could create harmony between people of different faiths. Strongly influenced by Sufism, Gibran once wrote, "I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit."

Sensuous and free flowing, Gibrain's works are committed to the aesthetics principle of depicting suggestion over statement, of establishing an "aesthetic mood" over making grand visual gestures. It is this form of gentle, sensitive draughtsmanship, which is so arousing in Gibran's works, and which justifies his position as one of the most enigmatic, admired and talented cultural figures of the twentieth century.