Acquired directly from the artist in 1967

Ixelles, Musée des beaux-arts, Delvaux, 1967
Brussels, Musée royaux des beaux-arts de Belgique, Hommage à Paul Delvaux, 1977, no. 122
Turin, Palazzo Bricherasio, Il surrealismo di Paul Delvaux tra Magritte e de Chirico, 2005-06, no. 52, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Executed on two sheets of cream colored wove paper joined vertically at center of composition. These sheets are backed with Japan paper. A few scattered spots of fly spec and some spots of foxing near the lower center edge. Medium is strong and the colors are strong. A few artist studio stains original to the work. The work is in very good condition.
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After exhibiting in several of the international Surrealist exhibitions organized by André Breton throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, Delvaux earned his place amongst a daring and avant-garde group of artists that included Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí and fellow Belgian René Magritte. Much has been written about the impossibility of a simple, singular interpretation of Delvaux’s art, though undeniably it is the artist’s depictions of women where one finds the enigmatic quality which is central to his oeuvre. As Gisele Ollinger-Zinque observes, “the real essence of Delvaux’s work is expressed in the feminine presence, it is there that the most violent part of the mystery resides” (Gisele Ollinger Zinque, Paul Delvaux 1897-1994 (exhibition catalogue), Musées royaux des beaux-arts de Belgique, Brussels, 1997, p. 22).

Delvaux’s works are noted for their frank depictions of nudity and unabashed sexuality. To Delvaux these were essential to his art, so much so that he asserted, “naturally there is eroticism. Without eroticism I would find painting impossible…painting of the nude in particular. A nude is erotic-even when indifferent, when glacial. What else would it be? The eroticism of my work resides in its evocation of youth and desire” (quoted in ibid., p. 22).