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Lot 24W

MODERN SCHOOL
Les Années Folles

17 November 2020, 17:00 EST
New York

US$70,000 - US$100,000

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MODERN SCHOOL

Les Années Folles
oil and gold leaf on canvas
54 x 129 2/8 in (137 x 325 cm)
Painted circa 1925

Footnotes

Provenance:
Private collection, Europe.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2019.

Les Années Folles (circa 1925) is a monumental, frieze-like painting which attests to the anonymous artist's virtuosic skill and academic knowledge. There appears to be strong stylistic influence from the Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923) in the depiction of the figures, but the artist may have drawn from many diverse inspirations to compose this grand mise-en-scene. The background of rich gold leaf calls to mind varied sources, from precious Byzantine icons to Gustav Klimt's Symbolist masterpieces.

The horizontal composition structured by the architectural device of Ionic columns and the licentious subject matter may obliquely reference a work such as Thomas Couture's canonical history painting Romans During the Decadence (1847), drawing dramatic parallels between the disintegrating culture of hedonistic ancient Rome and the perceived profligacy of the decade of the 1920s. The clothing and hairstyles of the subjects cavorting in the right grouping of Les Années Folles are indicative of this specific time period.

The group on the left, dressed in modest, indigenous garb, acts as a foil contrasting against the dandy in his silk top hat surrounded by 'three graces' in various states of undress. Universal themes of social inequality and male exploitation of the female are explored but the artist's primary goal is not critical censure, but rather to present a tableau of opulent theatre.

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