SOLDHead of a woman - three quarter profile, late 1890s
Framed (ref: 11)
Inscribed 106
Lithographic crayon on laid paper, 6 1/2 x 7 in. (16.5 x 18 cm.)
SOLDProvenance: Count William de Belleroche; private collection
Belleroche was a founder member of the Salon d'Automne, exhibiting
alongside the Impressionists and associating with Emile Zola, Oscar
Wilde, Albert Moore, Renoir, Degas, Helleu and Toulouse-Lautrec. He
shared a studio with his friend, John Singer Sargent, whose handling of
pastel was to be of great inspiration to Belleroche. In turn,
Belleroche's sensitivity to tone and creation of form through the
modelling of light exerted an influence on Sargent. Belleroche's talent
as a painter was recognized by his contemporaries - Degas purchased a
work from him and in the early 1890s the French state acquired a
painting for the Luxembourg Gallery. Roger-Marx, the critic who
discovered Renoir, was amongst Belleroche's fervent admirers, referring
to him as 'le peintre des femmes decoiffées' (Gazette de Beaux-Arts,
XLX, Jan 1905).
