Vlaho Bukovac (Croatian, 1855-1922)
Nude resting
signed and dated 'B. BUKOVAC 1892' (lower left)
oil on canvas
54.5 x 45.5cm (21 7/16 x 17 15/16in).
Footnotes:
Provenance
Private collection, UK.

As Igor Zidic writes:

In the wake of the well-known Young Patrician Lady (1890) an epitome of his neo-classical period, Bukovac painted a group of semi-nudes, shown both in the open air and indoors. They are tender and very appealing, and the present lot could certainly be described as forming part of this group. Bukovac often returned to this theme, because, during pauses while painting from the model, while she is resting, he is attracted to the ease and relaxation of the model, not present when he is painting an arranged standing nude.

At first glance, this painting attracts the eye, it is even, we may say, 'commercial'. But love and deep feelings are also evident. The painting is executed with technical virtuosity, but not in a cold manner. I think it is a great example of its period.

As Alex Kidson writes:

Born Biagio Faggioni of mixed Italian and Dalmatian descent in the little Adriatic port of Cavtat in 1855, Bukovac showed such artistic promise as a young man that he was sponsored to study in Paris by Dalmatia's leading patron of the arts, Bishop Josip Strossmayer. He took the nationalistic name Bukovac, westernised his first name to Blaise, and remained in Paris for sixteen years, from 1877 until 1893. He studied with Alexandre Cabanel, creator of one of the most celebrated nudes in 19th-century French art, The Birth of Venus, and it was with a female nude, La Grande Iza, that he himself first made a sensation at the Paris Salon, in 1882.

Bukovac's handling of the nude was central to his Western academic training and to his reception. Following his success with La Grande Iza he was 'picked up' by the London firm of dealers Vicars Brothers, who introduced him to their English clients and marketed him in titillating fashion as exotic and risqué. Female nudes appear regularly in Bukovac's work of the 1880s and studies for these figures are numerous. Photographs of his studio in Montmartre at this time often show Parisian models in a state of semi- or full undress. Among his celebrated works of this period was Une Fleur sold at Bonham's in 2006.

What gives special fascination to the present study – especially given the work's almost certain English provenance; it has descended in the same family collection in Britain for four generations – is the model's uncanny resemblance to Laura, wife of Bukovac's Liverpool patron Richard LeDoux. Towards the end of his stay in the west, between 1890 and 1892, Bukovac visited the couple at their home in West Derby, affluent suburb of Liverpool, on several occasions, and at least three portraits of Laura dating from these years are known. Comparison of the likeness in this study with the formal portrait of Laura painted in the same year and shown at the Paris Salon in 1893 (Mrs Richard Le Doux, National Museums Liverpool; Walker Art Gallery) reveals striking similarities: the long curving eyebrow, reaching nearly to the centre of the face; the prominent rounded chin, the Empire hairstyle...

Could Laura really have posed semi-nude for Bukovac, favoured guest in Liverpool as he was? There are certainly circumstantial hints that Laura's morals were advanced and that she and her Parisian protegé could have conducted a brief affair. What may have been Bukovac's first portrait of her, apparently commissioned by LeDoux's business friend Samson Fox of Harrogate, was given away after Fox's death to the family's housemaid – a seemingly telling fate. In 1892 when Bukovac travelled to West Derby with his new Dalmatian fiancée Jelica Pitarević, Laura presented her – almost as if in expiation – with a huge diamond ring. Is there a sense in Bukovac's salon portrait of Laura that her eyes are saying farewell; and that here, in this semi-nude study, she has turned away from the artist forever? While there are many scenarios in which Bukovac could have created this extraordinarily sensuous and intimate portrait, it is hard to imagine that it does not hold strong personal meanings; or that it is simply the kind of academic exercise that his practice as a figure-painter prescribed.

We are grateful to Igor Zidic and Alex Kidson for compiling this catalogue entry.

The canvas has not been lined and provides a stable support for the work. There is fine, stable cracking to areas of thicker paint, namely the flesh tones and to some of the background drapery. Inspection under UV light reveals some tiny scattered lines of retouching to the sitter.