Jacques Emile Blanche (French, 1861-1942) - Portrait de la Comtesse de Greffuhle, circa 1890

signed 'J. E. Blanche' (lower right) - oil on canvas - 63 x 49 in. (160 x 124.4 cm.) - Estimate: $400,000-600,000

Provenance: with Lasson Gallery, London until 1989.
Aquired from the above by the present owner.

Notes: Jacques-Emile Blanche was born in Paris and raised in the fashionable suburb of Poissy. He spent his youth in a house that once belonged to the Princesse de Lamballe and he was educated in an atmosphere of culture and refinement. He was the grandson of the celebrated physician Emile Antoine Blanche who treated the elite of Paris, among them the poet Gerard de Nerval. From an early age, Blanche was exposed to the literary and artistic luminaries of late 19th Century Paris, and he was comfortable in the company of famous artists, musicians, writers and socialites. He spent some time in the studio of Henri Gervex, and won a gold medal at the Exposition universelle of 1900. He regularly exhibited at both the Paris Salon and the London Royal Academy and was made a Commander of the Legion of Honor that same year. Blanche was himself a man of letters who published novels (more or less autobiographical) which, like his paintings, give insight to the manners of mores of the social elite of the Belle Epoque. Portraits of a Lifetime was published in 1937, and its sequel More Portraits of a Lifetime which was published the following year were essentially chronicles of life in and about Paris around the turn of the century. Doubtless, the artist drew upon his social and artistic interaction with the cream of Parisian and London society as a basis for his novels, and his insight into the personalities of his subjects as an artist is clearly reflected in his writing.

Blanche was in enormous demand as a portraitist on both sides of the Channel. He traveled to England regularly beginning in 1884 and was no doubt exposed to the work of John Singer Sargent. He would also have known Sargent in Paris, where his clients included Jean Cocteau, Andre Gide, Edgar Degas, Claude Debussy, Maeterlinck, Paul Claudel, and Colette among others. His English sitters are no less distinguished, among them James Joyce, Henry James, Aubrey Bearsly and D. H. Lawrence. Blanche appears as a character in Mabel Dodge Luhan's memoirs and Arnold Bennet's diary. He counted among his friends Stephane Mallarmé, Thomas Hardy and King Edward VII.

During the last quarter of the 19th Century and the first decade of the 20th, painting and the decorative arts adapted to the elegance and sophistication of the lives that were led by the wealthy. Much of the wealth derived from the expansion of industry in Europe at a time of great economic growth, and even more came from the ever increasing spending power of rich patrons of art from North America who themselves wanted to take back across the Atlantic a taste of the splendor that was Europe. Of all the genres of art, the one which is the most reflective of this golden age is that of portraiture. The great artistic luminaries of this age were all portrait painters; John Singer Sargent, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, James Jebusa Shannon, Giovanni Boldini and Jacques Emile Blanche. This was the grand age of portraiture and Paris and London were its epicenters. These portraits offer the modern viewer a glimpse into the Gilded Age, an age of glamorous women, dashing men and beautiful children, all depicted in opulent surroundings. This was also an age of astounding literary achievement and there was no better way to immortalize authors than through portraiture. Blanche in particular painted a number of contemporary authors and these portraits are executed with a sensitivity which could only be mustered by this peintre-ecrivain.
The Belle Epoque was also an age of women. Women figure predominantly in the portraits by the major artists of the time and it was a time of breakthrough for women writers, artists, actors and patrons of the arts. It was the time of Mary Cassat, Edith Wharton, and Isabella Stuart Gardner. The comtesse de Greffuhle was no less a formidable figure in the circles of the intelligentsia of Belle Epoque Paris. As a patron of Marcel Proust (fig. 1) she is perhaps responsible for one of the most beautifully written novels of the age, and her help to Daghilev produced the most astounding ballets. She was a friend to Debussy, Ravel, and Satie. Proust paid her homage by basing his character of the Duchesse de Guermantes on her, and Blanche describes her company at length in Portraits of a Lifetime. That she was a formidable woman is beyond doubt, but like her contemporaries, she was ultimately feminine.

Elisabeth Comtesse Greffuhle was born Princesse Elisabeth Riquet de Caraman-Chimay in 1860. Her mother was born into the de Montesquiou family, which meant that Elisabeth was first cousin to Robert de Montesquiou (1855-1921), the renowned poet and esthete. In March of 1881, she married a naturalized Frenchman of Belgian descent, the handsome but already dissipated Henri-Jules Charles Emmanuel Greffuhle (1848-1932) who installed his young wife in a magnificent hotel particulier at 10 rue d'Astorg near the Champs Elysees. The marriage was a happy one at first, but soon the comte resumed his life as a serial womanizer. Elisabeth gave birth to one daughter, Aline, born in 19 March 1882, and in 1904, Elaine was married to the 12th duc de Gramont.

A distinguished and ubiquitous mondaine, the comtesse held a weekly salon in her Paris home where she drew together and entertained the cream of Parisian society as well as artists and politicians. Through her favorite cousin, Robert de Montesquiou, she met Whistler, Antonio de la Gandara, Philippe de Lazlo, and Marcel Proust, who based his character of the Duchesse de Guermantes in A la recherche du temps perdu on the comtesse. Here too, she met the painter Jacques Emile Blanche and they became fast friends. Blanche was a habitué at her salon. The comtesse was also interested in the Avant-guarde and she frequented Rodin's studio, was photographed by Nadar (fig. 2) and was a close friend of Mischa Natanson. Her friend Winnareta Singer and Blanche were instrumental in persuading the comtesse to finance the first productions of Diaghilev's Ballet russes seasons of 1909. Blanche's portrait of Nijinsky in Michel Fokine's 'Danse Simonoise' is perhaps one of his most famous images (fig. 4). Elisabeth, Comtesse de Greffuhle died in Paris in 1952 at the age of 92.

That Elisabeth de Greffuhle was beautiful is beyond dispute. In all of the portraits of her, both photographic as well as painted, she is clearly a woman who embodies all the charms desired in a woman at the end of the 19th Century. Each portrait divulges something of the intelligence and refinement of this extraordinary woman. In the Nadar photograph, she looks straight out to the viewer with a steady gaze, the large brown eyes almost challenging the viewer to come and discuss the latest novel or newest music. She is fashionably dressed and simply adorned; a pearl bracelet is her only jewelry. In her portrait by Lazlo (fig. 3), she is depicted half-turned away from the picture plane, but with her head and steady gaze once more fixed decidedly on the viewer. The pose in the painting is one of more overt challenge than the photograph, even though she is not depicted straight-on. And once again, her intelligence and elegance are portrayed through her choice of a black dress and simple black velvet ribbon around her throat.

However, it is in the portrait by Blanche that we truly see the comtesse. Blanche has chosen a large canvas for the comtesse, and it is clear that he is following a paradigm established by other portrait painters of the era particularly John Singer Sargent. Sargent's Portrait of Katherine Lewis (fig. 5) bears a striking resemblance to Blanches work, particularly in the color palette. Both artists have chosen blacks and blues to show off the porcelain skin of their sitters and both have set her against a dark background. Katherine Lewis too was a highly intelligent young woman, well connected in artistic and literary circles and her intelligence is clearly captured in her countenance. Sargent was the master of capturing elegance on canvas, and Blanche has used the same motif with the graceful curvature of the hand as in Portrait de Edouard Pailleron (fig. 6).

But it is the differences which are uniquely Blanche that demonstrate the complete understanding between the artist and his sitter, and the artist's unique ability to capture on canvas the personality of such a complicated woman

The comtesse is seated in a simple chair in an interior that is executed in quick, broad brushstrokes so as not to detract from the sitter. She looks straight out at the viewer; however, her head is tilted slightly to one side, as if she has just asked a question and is waiting to hear the answer. He body is perched on the chair, and it appears that she is about to rise. The kinetic energy created by the simple use of the contrapposto position informs the viewer that this is a woman who gets things done. Her shawl as fallen away, as has her fur wrap. She does not appear to notice. Her black dress and hat serve to emphasize her facial features and her hands, with their long, elegant fingers that so lightly grasp the ends of the blue shawl on the chair behind her. The result is a portrait of such force and dynamism, such insight into the psychology of this extraordinary woman, that the viewer comes to know her as did the artist, as one of the leading catalysts in the intellectual world of Paris in the Golden Age.

We would like to thank Jane Roberts for confirming the authenticity of this work and for her help in preparing this note. The present lot will be included in Ms. Roberts' forthcoming Blanche catalogue raisonné.

(Fig. 1) Jacques Emile Blanche, Portrait of Marcel Proust (Musée d'Orsay, Paris).

(Fig. 2) Photograph of the Comtesse Henri Greffulhe in 1895 by Nadar.

(Fig. 4) Jacques Emile Blanche, Vaslav Nijinsky in Michel Fokine's 'Danse Siamoise' from the divertissement 'Les Orientales', or 'Le Baiser Sacramentel de l'Idole'.

(Fig. 3) Philippe de Laszlo, Portrait of the Comtesse de Greffuhle.
(Fig. 5) John Singer Sargent, Katherine Lewis, 1906 (City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham).

(Fig. 6) John Singer Sargent, Edouard Pailleron, 1879 (Musée d'Orsay, Paris).

Christie's. 19th Century European Art. 8 April 2008, 10:00 am. 20 Rockefeller Plaza, New York