1870
Gouache et aquarelle rehaussée de crayon et craie noire sur carton
32,5 x 52,5 cm - 12 13/16 x 20 11/16 in.
Cambridge (GB), The Fitzwilliam Museum, Royaume-Uni - Inv. PD.1-2004
Dernière mise à jour : 2022-04-03 06:23:45
Référence : MSb-76
Probablement Marc Bazille, frère de l'artiste - Collection Rachou-Bazille, Montpellier - Collection Pellicer, Montpellier - Collection Fournels de Frettes - Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambrigde, 2004 [Jane Roberts Fine Arts].
Paris, musée d'Orsay, 2019, Le modèle noir de Géricault à Matisse, n° 130, repr. p. 182.
Schulman, Frédéric Bazille : Catalogue raisonné - Supplément 1, 2006, repr. p. 20 - Murell, Cat. exp. New York, 2018, fig. 74, repr. p. 73 - Bardon, Bégué, Bindman, Cat. exp. musée d'Orsay, Paris, 2019, n° 130, repr. p. 182 - Schulman, Frédéric Bazille : Catalogue raisonné numérique, 2022, n° 76.
About the Young Woman with Peonies [Previously Négresse aux pivoines], Maurice Sérullaz wrote: "This echo of [Manet's] Olympia suggested a personality of great class : he [Bazille] announced himself as one of the masters of the new formulas of French art and as the true precursor and leader of our Impressionist school" [Sérullaz, Etudes, April 20, 1939, p. 245].
There are two oil on canvas versions of the Young Woman with Peonies. One was donated in 1918 by Marc Bazille, the artist's brother, to the Fabre Museum in Montpellier, the other is in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., Mellon Collection. Both were executed in the studio and it is not surprising that they were the subject of a preparatory study, as Bazille was accustomed to. The Family Gathering, The Pink Dress, the Summer Scene, La Toilette, the Fisherman with a Net, The Western Ramparts at Aigues-Mortes and Ruth and Booz are all examples.
Possible preparatory study for the painting in the Fabre Museum in Montpellier, this Young Woman with Peonies acquired by the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge [Name given by the Fitzwilliam Museum] is nevertheless more than a sketch. It is a finished work, a further manifestation of Bazille's talent and proof that he was interested in other techniques such as gouache, watercolor and even pastel. Its acquisition by the Fitzwilliam Museum marks a step toward this recognition, which takes Bazille out of the usual frame in which some have too often wanted to confine him.
