£850 

Albert de Belleroche:
Reclining nude, knee raised
Unmounted (ref: 11316)

Inscribed on reverse "Drawing by Belleroche"

Black crayon on paper

Tags: Albert de Belleroche

Provenance: The Artist's Estate

Degas owned three lithographs by Belleroche 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).  

Marx also fully acknowledged Belleroche's importance as painter-lithographer, writing in 1908: Belleroche holds a premier position in the current renaissance of lithography.  No one since Eugene Carriere has equaled Belleroche's technique or his understanding of lithography.  He is a master.... Indeed he is a painter-lithographer: he brings his subjects to life in moving light and shadows.  His ink creates tones which reach the limits of the joyous and profound... His art, born in a daylight which is its own justification, is created from love." (Roger Marx, Peintres-lithographes Contemporains:Albert Belleroche Gazette des Beaux-Arts I,  vol 39, 1908,  p. 74).