Scandalous… Anita is waiting for 3,5 million dollars!

Anita,  La Gitane apprivosée (by Kees Van Dongen), coming from an American private collection is “flirting” with international dealers and collectors.

The painting will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné being prepared by Jacques Chalom des Cordes under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Institute and on the 7^th of May goes under the hammer at Sotheby’s Impressions & Modern Art Sale (New York).

The real woman behind the painting

The model for this striking portrait was Anita la Bohémienne, a dancer van Dongen met at a club in Pigalle. Provocatively baring her breasts, she smiles in a forthright manner at the spectator, seemingly anything but “apprivoisée” (tamed).  Van Dongen's experience working with his fellow artists at the Bateau Lavoir, the famous dilapidated studio in Montmartre, provided him access to some of the most flamboyant figures in the Parisian demi-monde.  Dancers, cabaret performers and members of the Cirque Médrano were frequent models at his studio, and the present composition exemplifies the free-spirited, joie de vivre that prevailed during these sittings.

BROKER’S AGENDA:

 

KEES VAN DONGEN (1877 – 1968), ANITA (LA GITANE APPRIVOISÉE)

Signed Van Dongen (upper right)
Oil on canvas
39 3/8 by 31 7/8 in.
100 by 81 cm
Painted circa 1907-08.

Price Estimate: 3,500,000 - 5,500,000 USD 

Provenance: Sam Salz, Inc., New York (acquired from the artist), Ronnie and Joseph S. Wohl, USA (acquired from the above). Acquired in 2000 by the present owner

Publicity of the painting:

Exhibitions: (possibly) Odessa, Salon 2, International Art Exhibition, 1909-10, no. 167 (titled Anita Pati), Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Van Dongen, 1942, no. 41 (titled Le Corset rouge), Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Van Dongen, 1949, no. 63 (titled Le Corset rouge and as dating from 1911), New York, Wildenstein & Co., Paris Cafés: Their Role in the Birth of Modern Art, 1985, illustrated in color in the catalogue.

Literature: Louis Chaumeil, Van Dongen: l'homme et l'artiste, la vie et l'oeuvre, Geneva, 1967, no. 51, illustrated pl. 51

What collectors need to know:

The scandalous nudes that van Dongen painted following his Fauve debut solidified his reputation as the grand provocateur among the avant garde. Van Dongen's presentation of his nude models, with their unabashed sexuality caused a sensation among critics of the day, who could not deny their attraction to these pictures in spite of the moral outrage they provoked.  "The women he paints are for the most part horrible things," reads a New York Times review for van Dongen's solo show at Kahnweiler in 1908, "and yet inspire with such melancholy beauty that the initiated gaze in rapture for hours at a time" (quoted in Arouna D'Souza, "Deformation and Seduction: van Dongen's Images of Women," van Dongen (exhibition catalogue), The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, 2008,  p. 179).