Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired from the artist on July 27, 1912)
Galerie Drouant-David, Paris

Sultry vixens and sensuous nudes, such as the one featured in the present work, are the hallmark of van Dongen's early career.  This painting belongs to a group of works that the artist completed right before the First World War, when he was solidifying his reputation as the painter of the young beauties of the Parisian demi-monde.  When the present work was completed, van Dongen was living in the Bateau-Lavoir, near Picasso's studio and amidst the hot-bed of avant-garde creativity.  The smoky cafés and concert halls of the neighborhood were filled with young cabaret performers and prostitutes who were willing to model, and like so many artists of his day, van Dongen was transfixed by their lurid beauty.  His involvement with these women resulted in some of the most alluring canvases of his oeuvre and ultimately attracted a new audience for his art.  Ironically, those most impressed with van Dongen's achievements were the grandes dames of Parisian society, who began commiꦗssi💟oning portraits from him in the 1910s, when the present work was completed.

Gaston Diehl has written the following on these pictures: "The vitality of his need for immediate pleasure took even more concrete form through his development [..] of two major themes.  One, with which, he was already quite familiar, is girls of the street.  He treats them without complacency, but - a point on which there is unanimous agreement - he knew how to make a troubling femininity radiate" (Gaston Diehl, Van Dongen, Milan, n.d., p. 41).