(1823-1906)
Le Jour de fête
Oil on panel
75 x 52 cm
1878
Signed lower right : Alfred Stevens
Provenance : Stokvis collection, Brussels ; Baron B., Gand ; sale of April 2024, Legia Auction, Belgium
After studying painting in Brussels with François Joseph Navez (1787-1869), Alfred Stevens entered the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 1844 in the studio of Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867). Friend of the impressionists Édouard Manet (1832-1883) and Berthe Morisot (1841-1895), he is introduced into the world of art thanks perhaps to the activity of his brothers, the art dealer Arthur Stevens (1825-1890), who settled in Paris and Brussels and the animal painter Joseph Stevens (1819-1892). His early works are social genre scenes, but it is with his representation of the woman of his time, elegant and refined, in the intimacy of a luxurious interior that the painter meets success. These two different aspects of a contemporary reality reveal the true leitmotiv of the artist: Etre de son temps. His compositions, which are characterized by the truth of attitudes and physiognomies are served not only by the rigor of the drawing but above all by the brightness and harmony of colors. They appeal to a large public and they are worth many honors at the 1861 Salon. At the 1867 Salon he exhibited eighteen works and was awarded a gold medal and the rank of officer in the Legion of Honour.
Our painting draws its subject from the theme of the letter that Alfred Stevens loves. Clothed and gloved as if returning from a walk elegantly dressed in a dark green velvet dress that is illuminated by a white pleated a young woman sat down in the middle of the flowers sent to her and stares at the viewer. It is not without humor perceptible in the title chosen for our painting Le Jour de fête that the artist evokes the complexity of feelings and the idea of a young woman spoiled with flowers the dreamy or melancholic look at a word of love that she still holds in her hand. The envelope on the ground shows his haste to open it.
In this composition the painter does not represent his model in an interior richly decorated as he is accustomed to. True to his reputation as a colourist he plays with audacity and vivacity of touch pink pearly tones of carnations, roses and rhododendron true echoes to the carnation of his model that he highlights by the contrast of dark tones of the draperies at the bottom and the green velvet of the dress.
According to a letter sent in January 1893 by Stevens to Charles Wilfrid de Bériot owner of the work the artist considers Le Jour de fête painted «in 1878, as one of his best works». Charles Wilfrid de Bériot is the only son of the famous Belgian composer and violinist Charles Auguste de Bériot (1802-1870) and one of the most famous singers in opera history Maria Felicia Malibran (1808-1836).
Parallel to his career as a virtuoso pianist and professor at the Paris Conservatory Charles de Bériot passionately collects the works of contemporary landscape painters with whom he gains friendship. Starting his collection with Dutch paintings of the seventeenth century as Rembrandt (1607-1669) and Gerard Terburgh (1617-1681) he then focuses on the work of the great masters of landscape of the nineteenth century precursors of impressionism of which he is one of the first admirers. The two auctions of 1901 and 1911 included the most beautiful paintings by Eugène Boudin (1824-1898) but also by Claude Monet (1840-1926), Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), Johann-Barthold Jongkind (1819-1891) and Henri Harpignies (1819-1916).
Homage to the modernity of Alfred Stevens, Le Jour de fête is an exception in the collection of Charles de Bériot who lent it accompanied by La Confidence at the Exposition de l’oeuvre d’Alfred Stevens, organized in 1900 in Paris.