Marie Laurencin (1883-1956), L'éventail ou Rosette , 1925, oil on canvas, signed and dated, 68x53 cm Provenance: Albert Flament, Paris, (acquired directly from the artist), Lucien Nouvel Collection, 1956, (by inheritance from the previous provenance), Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 27 February 1967, (unsold), then remained in the family to this day Exhibition: Marie Laurencin, Seibu Gallery, Tokyo, 1969, no. 4 Bibliography: Charlotte Gere, Marie Laurencin, London, 1977, reproduced on the 4th cover and p. 18, Daniel Marchesseau, Marie Laurencin. Catalogue raisonné de l'Œuvre Peint, Japon (Nagano-Ken), Éditions du Musée Marie Laurencin, 1986, vol. I, p. 177, no. 360, ill. b/w. Marie Laurencin (1883-1956) Produced in 1925, these two portraits mark the apogee of the artist's style, on her return to Paris after her exile in Madrid: diaphanous faces, supple contours, pearly tones and a suspended atmosphere. In Rosette, as in L'Italienne, the fragile female figure becomes almost allegorical, at once real and unreal. Ribbons, fabrics and fans play an essential role in these compositions, giving them an added grace. Their initial provenance, that of Albert Flament (1877-1956), writer and art critic, is particularly significant. A close friend and ardent supporter of Laurencin, he was one of the first to perceive in her work a purely feminine poetry, free of all realism. "You can say whatever you like, a woman is not a boy, she can have talent, she can work, she will only be more sensitive to suffer and seek retirement, those who have élans, who run on the roads, the independent ones, I look at them" M.L. These paintings were exhibited in Tokyo in 1969, during a major retrospective devoted to the artist. Although Laurencin had never been to Japan, the encounter between her work and the Japanese public was striking: the delicacy of the complexions, the economy of means and the restraint of the pictorial gesture evoked for visitors the still grace of the geishas in the Edo prints; the powdered faces and the soft, matt tones, dominated by greys, pinks and blues, echoed the aesthetic of reserve and refinement that Laurencin shared with the Japanese tradition.