Kees VAN DONGEN LA MARQUISE LUISA CASATI Although Kees van Dongen is best known for his paintings from the first years of the 20th century - from his Fauve period where he depicts models from the street and cabarets of the Place Pigalle - Kees van Dongen later moved towards a more fashionable style of painting that ensured a rapid rise to fame and wealth. Starting in 1914, he organized "large, lively parties" with a bacchanalian fervor in his huge studio at 33, rue Denfert Rochereau in Paris. A masked ball he organized during this period was an unforgettable experience for all invited. Kees, half-naked with his hair and beard scattered with tiny pink bows, welcomed celebrity artists and the contemporary Parisian jet set. Two women helped him penetrate this exclusive milieu: the "extravagant" Marquise Casati, encountered in 1914, and Léa Jacob, or Jasmy, "la divine", encountered in 1916. Born in Venice, the Marquise Luisa Casati Stampi owned a palace in Venice as well as several residences in France, sharing her time between Italy and Paris where the aristocracy, represented by the Duchesse de Clermont-Tonnerre and Prince Faucigny-Lucinge, were her hosts. She owed her celebrity to her considerable fortune, spectacularly extravagant behavior, and her title as the mistress of Gabriele d'Annunzio. A society columnist described her as follows during one of her appearances: "A dead woman enters the room. Her supple waist was clothed in white satin with a long train as if enveloped in a shroud. A mass of orchids covers her breast. Her hair is red, her face a livid alabaster white veined in green overpowered by huge eyes with a black line that almost reaches a red-tinted mouth like a dark band of coagulated blood. She carries a leopard cub in her arms. It is the Marquise Casati."* Van Dongen painted several portraits of the marquise, two of which reveal the secret of their liaison. The first, entitled Luisa, shows her in profile with her eye painted front on with its black line, her breasts naked except for a pendant in the form of a heart nestling between them. The second painting, Chez la marquise Casati, exhibited in 1917 at the Galerie d'Antin, was reproduced in color in the catalogue not only to display a choice but also a feeling such that the viewer understand the type of relationship between the painter and model. The present portrait, La marquise Luisa Casati, exhibits her elegant aristocratic profile smudged by an enormous black circle around her right eye. Her unique gaze served as a badge of recognition for the famous marquise, and today it enables us to identify her with certainty as the model. *Quoted in Louis Chaumeil, Van Dongen, Pierre Cailler Editeur, Geneva, 1957, p. 164. LITERATURE: 25 January - 9 June 2002, Martigny (Switzerland), Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Kees van Dongen (text by Philippe Dagen: Une "époque Cocktail": Van Dongen du côté de Dada).