Maximilien Luce

Exhibited by Stoppenbach & Delestre

Material Oil on canvas

Dimensions 46.2 × 38.4 cm

Price Available upon inquiry

Status Vetted

About the Work

By the mid-1890s, Maximilien Luce was a frequent guest at Éragny, where Camille Pissarro had settled in 1884 and later purchased the family house in 1892, remaining there until his death in 1903. Luce and Pissarro—who had become friends around 1890 and shared, among other affinities, a commitment to anarchist politics—found in Éragny a setting conducive to intimate, domestic subjects and sustained exchange. Works from Luce’s stays are often marked by heightened luminosity and a quieter register of everyday life, populated by women, children, and members of Pissarro’s circle.

The present painting depicts Ludovic-Rodolphe “Rodo” Pissarro (1878–1952), Camille Pissarro’s fourth son—himself an artist, known familiarly as “Rodo”. Luce returned to this motif on several occasions, treating the sitter not as a formal portrait subject but as part of the lived environment of Éragny. It was also here that Pissarro—unique among his peers for having exhibited in all eight Impressionist exhibitions—encouraged Luce to loosen his attachment to a strict neo-impressionist method. In Portrait of Rodo Pissarro, Luce uses short brushstrokes to depict a thoughtful figure. Bold colours, ranging from pink to blue, emphasise the sitter’s presence. This contrasts with the yellow and green of the background, which brings an overall luminosity to the painting.

In this work, Luce alternates between more freely handled, Impressionist-inflected passages and a divisionist facture attentive to optical vibration: a sustained testing of how technique might serve motif, atmosphere, and presence. Taken together, the brushwork and colour give the portrait its quiet intensity.

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Provenance

Private collection, New York;
Sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, 27 March 1963, lot 54.
The Arnold and Joan Saltzman Collection, USA

Literature

P. Cazeau, Maximilien Luce, Paris, 1982, p. 106 (illustrated).
D. Bazetoux, Maximilien Luce: Catalogue de l'œuvre peint, Paris, 1986, vol. II, p. 191, n° 757 (illustrated).