Marcellin & Madeleine Castaing (acquired from the artist)
Sale: Ader Tajan, Paris, 8th April 1994, lot 91
Private Collection, Paris (purchased at the above sale)

Paris, Grand Palais, L'Or des années folles, 1918-1930, 1979, no. 19, illustrated in the catalogue
Münster, Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte; Tübingen, Kunsthalle; London, Hayward Gallery & Lucerne, Kunstmuseum, Chaim Soutine, 1893-1943, 1981-82, no. 90, illustrated in colour in the catalogue (with incorrect orientation)
New York, Gallery Bellman, Soutine (1893-1943), 1983-84, no. 19, illustrated in the catalogue (with incorrect orientation)
Montrouge, Centre Culturel et Artistique, XXXIe Salon, C. Soutine, 1986, no. 27
Milan, Galleria Bergamini, Chaim Soutine (1893-1943), I dipinti della Collezione Castaing, 1987, no. 15, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Chartres, Musée de Chartres, Soutine, 1989, no. 69, illustra🌊ted in colour in the catalogue (asཧ dating from 1940)

Madeleine Ochse, 'Retour de Soutine' in Jardin des Arts, Paris, no. 218, May-June 1973, p. 9
Maurice Tuchman, Esti Dunow & Klaus Perls, Chaim Soutine (1893-1943), Catalogue Raisonné, Cologne, 1993, vol. II, no. 175, illustrated in colour p. 763

Executed on paper laid down on canvas. There is 1cm. sq. area of retouching and a 4cm. line of retouching running from the right edge, near the lower right corner. There is a 8cm. line of small spots of retouching running horizontally from the lower left edge. All retouching is visible under UV light. Apart from two small spots of retouching towards the upper left corner, this work is in good condition. Colours: The colours are richer and more subtle in the original work.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

La liseuse endormie (Madeleine Castaing) is a highly sophisticated expressionist portrait of Soutine's most important paಞtron. It was painted at the end of the 1930s, a decade during which Soutine's art reach🌱ed maturity and saw the development of his subject-matter and the introduction of a new emotional language.

Soutine first met Marcellin and Madeleine Castaing at the Café de la Rotonde in Montparnasse in 1920. Madeleine Castaing was one of the leading decorators of her time, renowned for her exquisite taste in furnishing and decoration. This encounter ended abruptly when Soutine angrily rejected Marcellin's offer to buy a painting from him unseen. Though they acquired two of his paintings in 1925, including Le grand enfant de chœur from the dealer Léopold Zborowski, it was not until 1928, while taking the waters at Chatelguyon in the Auvergne, that they met again. This time their friendship flourished, and the Castaings began to build up an important collection of Soutine's work. In addition, Madeleine sat for Soutine and that same year he painted the celebrated portrait of her which is now💛 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Madeleine sat for Soutine several times in his studio near the Parc Montsouris. She later recalled his unique working practice: 'While working it seemed as though he was elsewhere, which did not, however, prevent him from placing great importance on technique. In his hand he held a multitude of brushes at once. The moment a brush had been used with a particular colour, he threw it away, hence the purity of his palette... I often sat for him. One couldn't engage in chit-chat, or disagree with what he said - one ill-chosen word and he was beside himself' (quoted in R. Barotte, 'Le temoinage de Madeleine Castaing', in Plaisir de France, May 1973).

From the beginning of the 1930s, Soutine became a regular visitor to the Castaing's country home at Lèves, near Chartres. Lèves provided Soutine with a whole range of subjects, some completely new, including the cathedral of Chartres, views of country estates and animals. However, 'Soutine was not an easy guest, moody, solitary, demanding, subject to fits of anger, plagued by weeks of being unable to paint, then days of total absorption in his work. But their commitment to the painter was total. Their grounds provided Soutine with vistas to paint, and they spent days together searching for old canvases for him to paint on' (B. Klüver & J. Martin, An Expressionist in Paris: The Paintings of Chaim Soutine (exhibition catalogue), The Jewish Museum,💜 New York, 1998, p. 108).

The decade became known as his 'Chartres period', when his mature work was characterised by an increased naturalism and an assured𒅌 technique. One particular change that occurred during this time, exemplified by the present work, w☂as the introduction of a background and objects behind his models. La liseuse endormie must have been painted on one of these trips to Lèvres - Madeleine lies on a blue-upholstered chaise longue typical of her taste, where Soutine captures her having dozed off while reading. Discussing Soutine's portraiture of the 1930s, Maurice Tuchman and Esti Dunow write:

'Indeed, in the later images, from the mid-1930s into the early 1940s, the figures are involved in a much more fluent interaction with their environment than previously. The background is no longer devoid of props. The figure takes its place in a real setting and is no longer completely self-contained. It may be completely engrossed in itself, its thoughts and its mood, but it does definitely exist in combination with other objects, or engaged in activity, or set in landscape. This interaction is consistent with the landscapes of the later years in which there is a similar absorption between man and nature' (M. Tuchman, E. Dunow & K. Perls, op. cit., pp. 512 & 513).

A witness perhaps to the painful last years of Soutine's life, when he increasingly suffered from stomach cramps and found solace in his relationship with Madeleine, La liseuse endormie brings the painter and viewer considerably closer to his subject. Here the sitter is not presented in a particularly 'posed' manner, unlike many of Soutine's portraits of figures both known and unknown, including the 1928 Portrait of Madame Castaing (fig. 3). This distance has been interpreted as 'the resistance to a complete union between painter and model... Soutine may have felt it necessary to defuse their scrutiny of him' (M. Tuchman, E. Dunow & K. Perls, op. cit., pp. 509 & 510).

In the present work, Soutine evidently displays his ease with his subject, since she is in absorbed in her own world. She acknowledges neither the artist's, nor the viewer's presence, a fine testament indeed to the friendship and deep emotional bond that existed between Madeleine Castaing and Soutine towards the end of his life. The composition is especially daring: the sitter's body is rendered an expressionist vehicle, and there is a deliberate and moving tension between a figure 🌳at rest, but whose body remains tense, most apparent in the manner in which she holds the book, her right hand grasping the top of the spine.

Soutine uses strong, emotional brushstrokes and chromatic echoes to indicate the integrity of the figure presented before us: touches of white on her forehead and bridge of her nose that can be interpreted as reflections of light recall the brightness of her blouse, and the touches of green in her hair strike a balance with the colour of the veins in her forearm. 'The 'portrait' was a perfect vehicle for Soutine in its single focus. The depth of his emotional response to the subject was suited to the increasingly restricted composition format he used' (M. Tuchman, E. Dunow & K.Perls, op. cit., p. 513).