Penny Day
Head of UK and Ireland
Lot 75
Lucien Pissarro(British, 1863-1944)Portrait of Miss Chivers 55.5 x 46.7 cm. (21 7/8 x 18 3/8 in.)
15 June 2016, 15:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £50,000 inc. premium
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Christopher Dawson
Head of Department
Ingram Reid
Director
Lucien Pissarro (British, 1863-1944)
Portrait of Miss Chivers
signed with monogram and dated '1919' (lower right)
oil on canvas
55.5 x 46.7 cm. (21 7/8 x 18 3/8 in.)
Painted in April 1919
signed with monogram and dated '1919' (lower right)
oil on canvas
55.5 x 46.7 cm. (21 7/8 x 18 3/8 in.)
Painted in April 1919
Footnotes
Provenance
Private Collection, France
Literature
Anne Thorold, A Catalogue of the Oil Paintings of Lucien Pissarro, Athelney Books, London, 1983, pp.142-143, cat.no.294 (ill.b&w)
Lucien Pissarro had become a British citizen in 1916 and the majority of his time during these years was spent painting landscapes in Dorset, Devon, Essex, Surrey and Sussex. Portraiture was a rare venture for the artist although the accomplished nature of the present work demonstrates his skill in this manner. Pissarro had of course completed several distinguished figurative works during the 1890s such as Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (sold in these rooms on 15 June 2004 for £125,000). At the end of 1918 he had painted his daughter, Portrait of Orovida (Private Collection), in what appears a similar setting to the present work and this was followed in February 1919 by the first portrait of our sitter, Miss Gladis Chivers. Portrait of Miss Chivers was completed in April 1919 to the same scale as its aforementioned predecessor and shows, from a different angle, an attractive young lady reading within a well-furnished interior. The inclusion of what appears to be another painting by Lucien Pissarro, quite possibly a Thames landscape, within the work is a charming detail.
Although there is little information on Miss Chivers herself, fragmentary correspondence does exist between herself and Lucien's wife Esther dating to this period. Her tone would indicate that they were either old friends or acquaintances with her address in 1919 listed as 72 Warwick Street, London, SW1. A preparatory drawing for Portrait of Miss Chivers is held in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
