Иветта, Лизетта, Мюзетта, Жаннетта, Жоржетта
Серьезный соблазн для коллекционеров - «Лежащая женщина» Матисса.
Это роскошное изображение итальянской модели художника Лоретты,
выполненное около 1917 года. Элегантный образ натурщицы,
задрапированной в чёрное кружево, обойдется покупателю в 3,5 - 5,5 миллионов.
Из новостей аукциона Сотбис
Начиная с декабря 1916-го года до конца 1917-го Матисс нарисовал по крайней мере 25 картин итальянской натурщицы по имени Лоретта. Ещё на пятнадцати работах Лоретта изображена со своей сестрой и/или с подругой Аишей. Ниже работа Матисса из чикагского музея, - "Лоретта с чашкой кофе".
Ещё одну Лоретту из иерусалимского музея недавно показывал raf-sh.
Под катом некий текст на английском
https://suite.io/meg-nola/1wk82fk
Amid the grimness of a war-gripped November 1916, a new model came to the Paris studio of Henri Matisse. Her name was Lorette - sometimes spelled Laurette - and she had been born in Italy and made her living posing for artists such as Matisse. Lorette was then most likely in her late twenties to early thirties, while Matisse was approaching his forty-seventh birthday. Matisse had already begun to build his reputation as a modern painter, particularly through his previous association with the Fauves, and his relationship with Lorette would open even more creative channels.
In Matisse’s initial portrait of Lorette, she appears somewhat nervous and not at ease. Interestingly enough, Matisse simply labeled the painting The Italian Woman, and did not use the name Lorette or Laurette in the title like he would in later works. In looking at The Italian Woman, one gets a sense of the model’s physical and emotional discomfort, along with the general perception of drafty winter studios and an artist not quite sure what to express about the female seated before him. As the winter passed, however, the level of intimacy and connection between Matisse and Lorette began to deepen. The uncertain and tenuous beginning works like The Italian Woman and The Painter and His Model moved forward to portraits of Lorette in more relaxed or playful poses, with the use of costumes also introduced to the artistic milieu.
Lorette was not only willing to put on the clothing of various visions of inspiration - such as a dancer, a harem girl, or a reclining temptress - but she enjoyed playing up the persona of whatever identity she happened to be at that moment. Additionally, Lorette was responding to Matisse’s fascination with and love for brightly colored and patterned fabrics by donning them in headdresses, robes, and blouses.
Matisse had not approached painting in this manner before and soon found it to be excitingly obsessive. He produced many Lorette-centered works during late 1916 through 1917, showing a significant shift from his prior style’s more jarring colors and shapes. Through Lorette, Matisse developed a richer, flowing sense of color and line, as well as an increased intimacy toward his subject. In Lorette with Cup of Coffee in particular, beautiful creamy tones and smooth lines unite to show the model’s sloe-eyed and inviting gaze.
Lorette apparently felt a unique confidence and ease around Matisse, and she was even so uninhibited that she would go to the window naked to stretch herself during her studio breaks. This apparently attracted several interested male observers, most of them policemen in a nearby station. Matisse’s son Jean was another ardent admirer of Lorette, though the elder Matisse reportedly talked the younger out of proposing marriage to his model.
While the seductively dark-haired Lorette’s relations with Matisse may have seemed bound to take a sexual turn, it is most likely that Matisse confined his passion to his portraits. Matisse in general was an intense yet controlled - and married - man who probably preferred to project strong desires onto canvas or paper instead, where the results would be tangible, salable, and the best expression of his artistic growth.
Like many heated romantic affairs, after a certain period of time and obsession, the parties involved went their separate ways and did not meet again. Following some fifty portraits of the object of his creative fancies - and a few additional paintings involving Lorette’s sister Annette - Matisse headed south to Nice. Matisse usually wintered in the warmer part of France, seeking more color and light, and in this particular winter with his previous Lorette work behind him, the artist found himself primed to begin another major phase in his career known as the Nice Period.
The fate and later life of Lorette is a yet unsolved mystery, with speculation that she perhaps succumbed to the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic. Whether she lived long enough to witness Matisse’s 1951 retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art is also unknown, but despite the ultimate disappearance of Lorette, without the provocative model from Italy, Matisse might not have evolved into the same famed artist that much of the world reveres today.