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Une Japonaise (The Language of the Fan)
Artist:
Jules-Joseph Lefebvre
(French, 1836 - 1912)
Date: 1882
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
51 1/2 x 35 1/2 in. (130.8 x 90.2 cm)
Overall, Frame: 69 3/8 x 53 1/4 x 6 1/4 in. (176.2 x 135.3 x 15.9 cm)
Classification: European art
Credit Line: Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
Object number: 71.2058
Terms
- Woman
- Fan
- White
- Green
- Black
- Yellow
- Red
In Collection(s)
Not on view
DescriptionThis is an oil on canvas painting. It is a three-quarter length standing portrait of a woman in front of a wooden door and green painted balustrade. In the distance there seems to be a body of water and mountains. A pale pink four petaled flower grows through the balustrade in the left foreground. She wears a red robe decorated with flowers. She has a plum colored sash tied around her hips and waist. Her hair and eyes are dark brown to black. Her hair is pulled tight on her head, with a flurry of curls at the edges, decorated with flowers and ornamental combs. She has smooth skin and an oval face. She holds on open red fan in her right hand, the edge of which is lodged between her teeth. Her left is resting on her hip, with a small gold ring on her pinky finger.
Exhibition History"Art Pompier: Anti-Impressionism, 19th Century French Salon Painting," The Emily Lowe Gallery, Hofstra University, New York, Oct. 22 - Dec. 15, 1974. (Exhib. cat. no. 64).
"French Salon Paintings from Southern Collections," The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Jan. 21 - March 3, 1983; The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, April 1 - May 22, 1983; The North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, June 25 - Aug. 21, 1983; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Sept. 15 - Oct. 28, 1983. (Exhib. cat. no. 49).
"Paris 1889: American Artists at the Universal Exposition," The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA, Sept. 29 - Dec. 17, 1989; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Feb. 1 - April 15, 1990; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, TN, May 6 - July 15, 1990; New York Historical Society, NYC, Sept. 5 - Nov. 15, 1990.
"Overcoming All Obstacles: The Women of the Academie Julian," Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Oct. 2,1999 - Jan. 2, 2000; The Dahesh Museum (NYC), Jan. 18 - May 13, 2000; Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, July 9 - Sept. 24, 2000.
"Picturing French Style: Three Hundred Years of Art and Fashion," Mobile Museum of Art, AL, Sept. 6, 2002--Jan. 12, 2003; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL, Feb. 1--April 27, 2003.
"A Revolution in Paint," North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, September 17, 2006 - February 11, 2007.
"Masterworks from the Chrysler Museum," North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, April 9, 2013 - February 2, 2014.
“West Meets East, East Meets West: Cross-Cultural Encounter in Fashion and Art around 1900," Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan, April 15 – June 25, 2017.
"Keepers of the Flame: Parrish, Wyeth, Rockwell and the Narrative Tradition," Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA, June 9 - October 28, 2018.
"French Salon Paintings from Southern Collections," The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Jan. 21 - March 3, 1983; The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, April 1 - May 22, 1983; The North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, June 25 - Aug. 21, 1983; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Sept. 15 - Oct. 28, 1983. (Exhib. cat. no. 49).
"Paris 1889: American Artists at the Universal Exposition," The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA, Sept. 29 - Dec. 17, 1989; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Feb. 1 - April 15, 1990; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, TN, May 6 - July 15, 1990; New York Historical Society, NYC, Sept. 5 - Nov. 15, 1990.
"Overcoming All Obstacles: The Women of the Academie Julian," Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Oct. 2,1999 - Jan. 2, 2000; The Dahesh Museum (NYC), Jan. 18 - May 13, 2000; Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, July 9 - Sept. 24, 2000.
"Picturing French Style: Three Hundred Years of Art and Fashion," Mobile Museum of Art, AL, Sept. 6, 2002--Jan. 12, 2003; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL, Feb. 1--April 27, 2003.
"A Revolution in Paint," North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, September 17, 2006 - February 11, 2007.
"Masterworks from the Chrysler Museum," North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC, April 9, 2013 - February 2, 2014.
“West Meets East, East Meets West: Cross-Cultural Encounter in Fashion and Art around 1900," Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan, April 15 – June 25, 2017.
"Keepers of the Flame: Parrish, Wyeth, Rockwell and the Narrative Tradition," Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA, June 9 - October 28, 2018.
Label textJules-Joseph Lefebvre
French, 1836–1911
Une Japonaise (The Language of the Fan), 1882
Oil on canvas
Holding a red fan that matches her brilliant kimono and wearing blossoms in her hair, this coy European beauty is playing dress-up in traditional Japanese garb. France was swept up in Le Japonisme—the craze for all things Japanese—in the mid-1800s, after the American naval officer Matthew Perry reestablished trade relations between Japan and the West in 1854. Inspired by the trend, academic artists like Jules-Joseph Lefebve created seductive images like this one of playful and exotic women.
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.2058
French, 1836–1911
Une Japonaise (The Language of the Fan), 1882
Oil on canvas
Holding a red fan that matches her brilliant kimono and wearing blossoms in her hair, this coy European beauty is playing dress-up in traditional Japanese garb. France was swept up in Le Japonisme—the craze for all things Japanese—in the mid-1800s, after the American naval officer Matthew Perry reestablished trade relations between Japan and the West in 1854. Inspired by the trend, academic artists like Jules-Joseph Lefebve created seductive images like this one of playful and exotic women.
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.2058
Published References
Eric M. Zafran, with an introductory essay by Gerald M. Ackerman. _French Salon Paintings from Southern Collections_. Atlanta, GA: The High Museum of Art. 1982. No. 49.
Gary Levine, Robert R. Preato, and Francine Tyler. _La Femme: The Influence of Whistler and Japanese Print Masters on American Art, 1880-1917_. New York: Grand Central Art Galleries, Inc. 1983: 42, ill.
Thomas E. Norton, foreword by Douglas Dillon. _100 Years of Collecting in America: The Story of Sotheby Parke Bernet_. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers. 1984.
Jefferson C. Harrison. "Nineteenth-Century French Art - Part I," _The Chrysler Museum Gallery Guide_. Norfolk, VA: Chrysler Museum. 1985: p. 7, no. 17.
Exhibition catalogue. _Japonisme_. Paris: Galeries nationale du Grand Palais. 1988:65, fig. 201.
Annette Blaugrund, Albert Boime, D. Dodge Thompson, H. Barbara Weinberg, and Richard Guy Wilson. _Paris 1889: American Artists at the Universal Exposition_. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, in association with Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. 1989: 248-249.
Jefferson C. Harrison. _The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections: Selected Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings_. The Chrysler Museum. 1991. 148, plate 116.
New History of World Art Series. _Impressionism_. Volume 22. Tokyo: Shogakukan Inc. 1993: 292, no. 178.
_Japonism in Fashion_. Kyoto: Kyoto Costume Institute, 1994, 206, ill. in b/w.
Essays by Gabriel P. Weisberg and Jennifer L. Shaw, with introductory statements by Scott M. Black, Daniel O'Leary and Carrie Haslett,_Paris and the Countryside: Modern Life in Late - 19th - Century France_, exh. cat., Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, 2006, 13-14, 34.
Eric M. Zafran, "Norfolk's Salon Masterworks Shine Again," _Fine Art Connoisseur_, November-December 2014, 51.
Yokohama Museum of Art and The Kyoto Costume Institute, _The Elegant Other: Cross-cultural Encounters in Fashion and Art_, (Japan: Rikuyosha, 2017), fig. 120, page 85.
Provenance
Schauss; M. Cottier Gallery, New York; Sale, New York, May 27 - 28, 1892; James S. Inglis, New York; Sale, American Art Association, New York, Mendelssohn Hall, March 11- 12, 1909 (cat. no. 98); Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.; Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. to the Chrysler Museum, 1971.
Catalogue EntryJules-Joseph Lefebvre
French, 1836-1911
Une Japonaise (The Language of the Fan), 1882
Oil on canvas, 51½" x 35½" (130.8 x 90.2 cm)
Signed lower left: _Jules Lefebvre_
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., 71.2058
References: Atlanta, 1983, no. 49; _Paris 1889: American Artists at the Universal Exposition_, exhib. cat., Chrysler Museum, Norfolk; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; and Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, 1989-90, pp. 248-249.
The American naval officer Matthew Perry opened Japan to the West in 1854. The French were insatiably curious about the art and culture of this mysterious and long-inaccessible land, and France was soon swept by _le Japonisme_, the craze for all things Japanese. Several French artists of the day - Manet (no. 85) and Degas (no. 120) among them - engaged in a serious study of Japanese prints and worked to incorporate their compositional and spatial principles into their own paintings.
Other artists, including Jules-Joseph Lefebvre, responded more lightheartedly to the popular French vogue for Japanese curios, fans and costumes. They produced a number of fancy-dress _portraits à la japonaise_ - romantic genre images of women in stylish, Oriental garb. The Chrysler Museum painting is an enchanting example, painted by Lefebvre in 1882. It depicts a coquettish young woman posing in a brilliant red kimono with matching red fan - a seductive statement of contemporary chic. As Eric Zafran has noted, there is "a marvelous interplay between the real flowers [at lower left of the painting] and the embroidered ones [on the woman's clothes]." The painting was originally titled _Une Japonaise_. However, when it was sold in New York in 1909 from the estate of James Inglis, it was given the more anecdotal title of _The Language of the Fan_, which harmonizes well with the painting's suggestive tone.
Lefebvre's academic credentials were impeccable. He first studied in Paris with the painter Léon Cogniet and in 1852 enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He won the Ecole's coveted fellowship, the _Prix de Rome_, in 1861, which allowed him to continue his academic studies in Italy. He remained there until 1867. After returning to Paris, Lefebvre abandoned the high seriousness of academic style and devoted himself to society portraiture, fashionable genre images and paintings of female nudes. He became widely known in later years as a painter of beautiful women. "An unusually skilled draughtsman, Jules Lefebvre better than anyone else caresses, with a brush both delicate and sure, the undulating contour of the feminine form," wrote a sympathetic critic of the day.
Lefebvre's ultimate choice of subject matter did nothing to detract from his reputation as an academician. An esteemed member of the Legion of Honor and Institut de France, he exhibited his work regularly at the Salon from 1863. He was also one of the most popular artist-teachers at the Académie Julian in Paris.
Jefferson C. Harrison. _The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections: Selected Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings_. The Chrysler Museum. 1991. 148, plate 116.
French, 1836-1911
Une Japonaise (The Language of the Fan), 1882
Oil on canvas, 51½" x 35½" (130.8 x 90.2 cm)
Signed lower left: _Jules Lefebvre_
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., 71.2058
References: Atlanta, 1983, no. 49; _Paris 1889: American Artists at the Universal Exposition_, exhib. cat., Chrysler Museum, Norfolk; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; and Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, 1989-90, pp. 248-249.
The American naval officer Matthew Perry opened Japan to the West in 1854. The French were insatiably curious about the art and culture of this mysterious and long-inaccessible land, and France was soon swept by _le Japonisme_, the craze for all things Japanese. Several French artists of the day - Manet (no. 85) and Degas (no. 120) among them - engaged in a serious study of Japanese prints and worked to incorporate their compositional and spatial principles into their own paintings.
Other artists, including Jules-Joseph Lefebvre, responded more lightheartedly to the popular French vogue for Japanese curios, fans and costumes. They produced a number of fancy-dress _portraits à la japonaise_ - romantic genre images of women in stylish, Oriental garb. The Chrysler Museum painting is an enchanting example, painted by Lefebvre in 1882. It depicts a coquettish young woman posing in a brilliant red kimono with matching red fan - a seductive statement of contemporary chic. As Eric Zafran has noted, there is "a marvelous interplay between the real flowers [at lower left of the painting] and the embroidered ones [on the woman's clothes]." The painting was originally titled _Une Japonaise_. However, when it was sold in New York in 1909 from the estate of James Inglis, it was given the more anecdotal title of _The Language of the Fan_, which harmonizes well with the painting's suggestive tone.
Lefebvre's academic credentials were impeccable. He first studied in Paris with the painter Léon Cogniet and in 1852 enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He won the Ecole's coveted fellowship, the _Prix de Rome_, in 1861, which allowed him to continue his academic studies in Italy. He remained there until 1867. After returning to Paris, Lefebvre abandoned the high seriousness of academic style and devoted himself to society portraiture, fashionable genre images and paintings of female nudes. He became widely known in later years as a painter of beautiful women. "An unusually skilled draughtsman, Jules Lefebvre better than anyone else caresses, with a brush both delicate and sure, the undulating contour of the feminine form," wrote a sympathetic critic of the day.
Lefebvre's ultimate choice of subject matter did nothing to detract from his reputation as an academician. An esteemed member of the Legion of Honor and Institut de France, he exhibited his work regularly at the Salon from 1863. He was also one of the most popular artist-teachers at the Académie Julian in Paris.
Jefferson C. Harrison. _The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections: Selected Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings_. The Chrysler Museum. 1991. 148, plate 116.