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Lot Essay
The subject of Les trois soeurs can lay fair claim to being the most ambitious scheme of Balthus' entire career, occupying the artist for over a decade. Excluding preparatory drawings, it encompasses some ten paintings and traces its genesis back to 1952. The present work, dating from the early 1960s, which has remained in the same family since it was given as a gift from the artist, is perhaps the culminating painting of the Les trois soeurs cycle.
In 1952, when Balthus wished to buy back his work La jupe blanche of 1937 (L. P103; Private collection), which he had previously sold to Pierre Colle, he visited Colle's widow, Carmen Baron, a friend to many artists and the hostess of a celebrated artistic salon. She agreed to sell the work back to the artist in return for portraits of her three daughters, Marie-Pierre, Béatrice and Sylvia (fig. 1). Balthus executed some pencil studies of Marie-Pierre, the eldest, in 1954 (see L. D738) and in the summer of the same year he visited the family at their home in Biarritz, Le Chapelet, when he made further drawings of the three girls together (see L. D739). On his return to his home at Chassy, Balthus worked up these drawings into three paintings treating the girls alone or in pairs (L. P231-233; Private collections).
The Paris-based British sculptor Raymond Mason later recalled his first meeting with Balthus: 'We met at the home of Carmen Baron in Rue de Varenne. Her first husband, Pierre Colle, a Parisian art dealer, had rapidly made a name for himself thanks to his sharp eye in choosing his artists. He put on Alberto Giacometti's first show, and then became the dealer for Derain and Balthus, before his premature death in 1948. The three daughters of that marriage--Marie-Pierre, Béatrice and Sylvia-- are known to the history of art for Les trois soeurs, which Balthus painted in the 1960 [sic]... If [Balthus] had to remain in town for a few days, he stayed at Carmen's, where he had his own room. He was the favorite of the household; indeed, if truth be told, he was the darling child of the entire company, who considered him a rare, quintessential, artist' (quoted J. Clair, Balthus, New York, 2001, p. 125).
The first version in which the three sisters are represented together (L. P234) was finished in 1955 (fig. 2). It places the sitters in the music room of Le Chapelet, borrowing the overall arrangement from an earlier work of 1941, Etude pour "Le salon" (L. P131). However, Balthus imposes a more rigid tripartite structure on Les trois soeurs, positioning the figures in a frieze-like succession across the canvas, reminiscent, as has been pointed out by Balthus' contemporary biographer Jean Leymarie, of a fourteenth-century fresco by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena (fig. 3).
Each girl in the earliest Les trois soeurs in the large format is dressed in Christian Dior, with whom their mother worked and who it is said also supplied chocolates in order to keep the girls still during the sittings. The vivid colors of their clothes offset the more sombre coloring of the imposing interior. Indeed, Balthus changed the original color of the sofa from yellow to green in order to better complement Marie-Pierre's red dress.
Another version of the subject was executed in 1955 (L. P252; Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Caracas). In this version Balthus adopts a fresher tonality, with the central girl, Marie-Pierre, pictured not in red but in a vibrant lemon yellow sun dress. The spatial concerns which prevailed in Balthus' art in the early 1950s are played out in both these earlier versions of Les trois soeurs. The pictorial space is flattened and the sitters adopt a regular, sequential spacing, eschewing the spatial ambiguity that marks his earlier work.
Balthus' fascination with the subject continued into the early 1960s when, at the beginning of his tenure as director of the French Academy in Rome, he executed three further versions of the subject, including the present work. In each case he enlarged the scale and varied either the sequence of figures or the coloring of the setting or both. For instance, in the present work the youngest of the sitters, Sylvia, has been moved to the right of the composition and her older sister, Béatrice, placed on the left. Béatrice, now reading like her younger sister, adopts a pose recalling that of Hubert in Les enfants Blanchard (fig. 3; L. P100; Musée de Louvre, Paris) from 1937, or, in a reversed orientation, the central figure of La patience (L. P242; Private collection).
The present work's inclusion of the geometric-patterned carpet is another innovation, recalling antique Sardinian abstract design. The two other versions executed at this time (L. P325 & P327; Private collections) also possess their own unique inclusions. However, all the works share a delicacy of palette and a freshness of surface that establish a fresco-like quality, which may have been Balthus drawing inspiration from his surroundings at the Villa Medici. Certainly the setting of the present work has been directly influenced by the coloring of the renovated Villa Medici (see fig. 4). Moreover, Balthus' exploration of flattened picture space, a notable feature of the earlier versions of Les trois soeurs, takes on extra impetus in the Rome pictures. The present work, for example, exhibits an extreme tilting of the picture plane which acts in contradiction to any formal hierarchy and adds an equal emphasis across the paint surface.
Jean Leymarie, in describing the three Rome versions, takes up the story: 'The calibre of the forms and the breadth of folded fabrics, have the majesty of Doric sculpture... The setting in [the present work] is no longer the drawing room at Biarritz but that of the Villa Medici, with its noble proportions, which Balthus had begun to refurnish and whose walls he had repainted in accordance with the old techniques... The space of Renaissance painting and its source, the eurhythmy of classical metopes, are here brought together' (op. cit., pp. 108-112).
(fig. 1) Béatrice, Sylvia and Marie-Pierre Colle photographed circa 1954. BARCODE 20627140
(fig. 2) Balthus, Les trois soeurs, 1954-1955. L. P234; Private collection. BARCODE 20627157
(fig. 3) Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Le tre virtù. Palazzo Pubblico, Siena. BARCODE 20627164
(fig. 4) The principal room at the Villa Medici, Rome. BARCODE 20627171
In 1952, when Balthus wished to buy back his work La jupe blanche of 1937 (L. P103; Private collection), which he had previously sold to Pierre Colle, he visited Colle's widow, Carmen Baron, a friend to many artists and the hostess of a celebrated artistic salon. She agreed to sell the work back to the artist in return for portraits of her three daughters, Marie-Pierre, Béatrice and Sylvia (fig. 1). Balthus executed some pencil studies of Marie-Pierre, the eldest, in 1954 (see L. D738) and in the summer of the same year he visited the family at their home in Biarritz, Le Chapelet, when he made further drawings of the three girls together (see L. D739). On his return to his home at Chassy, Balthus worked up these drawings into three paintings treating the girls alone or in pairs (L. P231-233; Private collections).
The Paris-based British sculptor Raymond Mason later recalled his first meeting with Balthus: 'We met at the home of Carmen Baron in Rue de Varenne. Her first husband, Pierre Colle, a Parisian art dealer, had rapidly made a name for himself thanks to his sharp eye in choosing his artists. He put on Alberto Giacometti's first show, and then became the dealer for Derain and Balthus, before his premature death in 1948. The three daughters of that marriage--Marie-Pierre, Béatrice and Sylvia-- are known to the history of art for Les trois soeurs, which Balthus painted in the 1960 [sic]... If [Balthus] had to remain in town for a few days, he stayed at Carmen's, where he had his own room. He was the favorite of the household; indeed, if truth be told, he was the darling child of the entire company, who considered him a rare, quintessential, artist' (quoted J. Clair, Balthus, New York, 2001, p. 125).
The first version in which the three sisters are represented together (L. P234) was finished in 1955 (fig. 2). It places the sitters in the music room of Le Chapelet, borrowing the overall arrangement from an earlier work of 1941, Etude pour "Le salon" (L. P131). However, Balthus imposes a more rigid tripartite structure on Les trois soeurs, positioning the figures in a frieze-like succession across the canvas, reminiscent, as has been pointed out by Balthus' contemporary biographer Jean Leymarie, of a fourteenth-century fresco by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena (fig. 3).
Each girl in the earliest Les trois soeurs in the large format is dressed in Christian Dior, with whom their mother worked and who it is said also supplied chocolates in order to keep the girls still during the sittings. The vivid colors of their clothes offset the more sombre coloring of the imposing interior. Indeed, Balthus changed the original color of the sofa from yellow to green in order to better complement Marie-Pierre's red dress.
Another version of the subject was executed in 1955 (L. P252; Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Caracas). In this version Balthus adopts a fresher tonality, with the central girl, Marie-Pierre, pictured not in red but in a vibrant lemon yellow sun dress. The spatial concerns which prevailed in Balthus' art in the early 1950s are played out in both these earlier versions of Les trois soeurs. The pictorial space is flattened and the sitters adopt a regular, sequential spacing, eschewing the spatial ambiguity that marks his earlier work.
Balthus' fascination with the subject continued into the early 1960s when, at the beginning of his tenure as director of the French Academy in Rome, he executed three further versions of the subject, including the present work. In each case he enlarged the scale and varied either the sequence of figures or the coloring of the setting or both. For instance, in the present work the youngest of the sitters, Sylvia, has been moved to the right of the composition and her older sister, Béatrice, placed on the left. Béatrice, now reading like her younger sister, adopts a pose recalling that of Hubert in Les enfants Blanchard (fig. 3; L. P100; Musée de Louvre, Paris) from 1937, or, in a reversed orientation, the central figure of La patience (L. P242; Private collection).
The present work's inclusion of the geometric-patterned carpet is another innovation, recalling antique Sardinian abstract design. The two other versions executed at this time (L. P325 & P327; Private collections) also possess their own unique inclusions. However, all the works share a delicacy of palette and a freshness of surface that establish a fresco-like quality, which may have been Balthus drawing inspiration from his surroundings at the Villa Medici. Certainly the setting of the present work has been directly influenced by the coloring of the renovated Villa Medici (see fig. 4). Moreover, Balthus' exploration of flattened picture space, a notable feature of the earlier versions of Les trois soeurs, takes on extra impetus in the Rome pictures. The present work, for example, exhibits an extreme tilting of the picture plane which acts in contradiction to any formal hierarchy and adds an equal emphasis across the paint surface.
Jean Leymarie, in describing the three Rome versions, takes up the story: 'The calibre of the forms and the breadth of folded fabrics, have the majesty of Doric sculpture... The setting in [the present work] is no longer the drawing room at Biarritz but that of the Villa Medici, with its noble proportions, which Balthus had begun to refurnish and whose walls he had repainted in accordance with the old techniques... The space of Renaissance painting and its source, the eurhythmy of classical metopes, are here brought together' (op. cit., pp. 108-112).
(fig. 1) Béatrice, Sylvia and Marie-Pierre Colle photographed circa 1954. BARCODE 20627140
(fig. 2) Balthus, Les trois soeurs, 1954-1955. L. P234; Private collection. BARCODE 20627157
(fig. 3) Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Le tre virtù. Palazzo Pubblico, Siena. BARCODE 20627164
(fig. 4) The principal room at the Villa Medici, Rome. BARCODE 20627171