JEAN DELVILLE (1867-1953)
Méditation
signed and dated 'Jean Delville 1929' (lower left)
charcoal, pen and ink and black pencil on paper
63.3 x 24.9cm (24 15/16 x 9 13/16in).
Executed in 1929
Footnotes:
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Miriam Delville. This work will be included in the forthcoming Jean Delville catalogue raisonné, currently being prepared.

Provenance
The artist's estate.
The Piccadilly Gallery, London (acquired from the above on 31 July 1981).
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1998.

Exhibited
London, The Piccadilly Gallery, Belgian Drawings, Since 1870, 21 September – 16 October 1971, no. 10a.
London, The Piccadilly Gallery, Symbolist & Other Works by Belgian Artists, c. 1800-1940, 30 March – 30 April 1982, no. 25.
London, The Piccadilly Gallery, 1998.

Born of humble beginnings in Leuven in 1867, Jean Delville would go on to become one of the leading Symbolist artists of his time.

Having shown his brilliance as a scholar at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, where he won many of the prestigious prizes, he would later hold a number of prominent tenures at various institutions. The most notable of which included a stint at the flourishing Glasgow School of Art in 1900-1906 and at his old school, the Académie des Beaux-Arts, from 1906-1937. The great respect of his students and his influence as a teacher there is evident, as a number of his British students followed him from Glasgow to Belgium in 1906, seeking further tutelage.

Delville first exhibited with the group L'Essor in 1887, wherein his works were favourably reviewed in the contemporary press. Later he would co-found the group Pour l'Art in 1892 and initiate his own Salons d'Art Idéaliste in Brussels two years after that. He compiled a huge oeuvre, of which many were completed for the public sphere, however, during the onslaught in Europe of two world wars a great number of his works were lost or destroyed, adding to his auction rarity.

The artist believed that his works should uplift the viewer and serve to benefit wider society, rather than be shielded and enjoyed by only the intellectual elite. He saw art as the expression of a higher spiritual truth and that it should be based on the principle of ideal, or spiritual, beauty.

The work is attached at several points along the edges (verso). The edges are slightly uneven. There are artist's pinholes to the upper right and lower right corners.



A tiny nick to the left upper edge. One or two fine scattered surface scratches present. There is some historic mount staining and very faint mount rubbing to the outer edges. Some mild surface dirt is present and the sheet has darkened slightly, with several spots of foxing visible.



In our opinion, the work is in overall very good condition.