Maurice DENIS (1870-1943) - Lot 153

Maurice DENIS (1870-1943) The Music Lesson - circa 1907 Oil on cardboard. Monogrammed lower left MB. 116 x 98 cm. Study for one of the murals painted by Maurice Denis in 1907 to decorate the vestibule of the private mansion of Jacques Rouché, future director of the Paris Opera. His two young daughters are shown here, on the right, singing. This work will appear in the catalog raisonné of Maurice Denis' work under the title: "La Leçon de Musique, étude pour Terre latine, décoration Rouché, c. 1907". Attached certificate from Dominique Denis, son of Maurice Denis, dated February 3, 1988. Provenance : - private collection, Nice. - Maître Rouillac sale, Cheverny, June 22, 1991. Text taken from the Maurice Denis Museum website: "Jacques Rouché (1862-1957), music critic, director of the Théâtre des Arts and then, from 1914, of the Opéra de Paris, turned to innovative artists to decorate his private mansion on the Plaine Monceau in Paris. He commissioned a ceiling for his hallway from Maurice Denis, who in 1907 created a décor on the theme of Latin Earth, inspiring art and poetry. The characteristics of the space to be decorated stimulated the painter's creativity, and the cut-out shapes of Terre latine follow the architecture of a vault. The decor is composed of three large allegorical panels, Plastic Art, Poetry and Music, as well as a Landscape, intended for the top of the entrance door and extended by two vertical door frames. A two-part stained glass window, one of which - Nude with Mirror - is in the Musée Maurice Denis, completes the decor. The whole evokes the arts of classical humanity, which are staged on earth, while their allegory sails in the heavens. The panels are set in Mediterranean landscapes, for which Maurice Denis recalls his trip to the Midi in 1906 during a visit to Cézanne. The various scenes include real and imaginary characters, among them an artist, Maillol, depicted sculpting a statue. The definitive canvases, which Rouché himself had previously uncovered and kept in his last house in Saint-Germain (now the Conservatoire de Musique), were acquired by the town of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and placed on deposit at the Maurice Denis Museum, which also holds sketches for this décor from the artist's studio collection." * Sold by designation (available for viewing after the sale).