Emile BERNARD (1868-1941) - Lot 316

Emile BERNARD (1868-1941) Portrait of a woman in profile Pastel on canvas 34 x 37.5 cm Provenance : - Former Eugène Boch collection - Eugène Boch estate, mentioned in the inventories of his estate. Family tradition suggests that this is a portrait of Anna Boch. Eugène Boch was born into a family of entrepreneurs in Belgium, founders of Villeroy & Boch, and spent time in the studio of French painter Léon Bonnat in Paris in 1879. Boch then worked in Fernand Cormon's studio. Dodge MacKnight introduced him to Van Gogh, who painted his portrait, now in the Musée d'Orsay. He was the younger brother of Anna Boch, a painter who took part in the 1907 Salon des Beaux-Arts in Ostend with Anna De Weert, Louise Danse and Marie Antoinette Marcotte. Anna Boch had one of the most important collections of Impressionist paintings of her time. She promoted young artists, including Vincent van Gogh, whom she admired for his talent and who was a friend of her brother Eugène Boch. She bought him La Vigne rouge, the only work Van Gogh managed to sell during his lifetime, for 400 francs. Anna Boch died in Brussels in 1936 and is buried in the Ixelles cemetery. Anna Boch's collection was sold at auction after her death, where Russian collector Sergei Shchukin notably acquired Vincent van Gogh's La Vigne rouge. The previously unpublished works presented in this sale come from the descendants of the French family who inherited her collection. For an identical provenance, see : Maître BONDU, Drouot-Richelieu, March 18, 1996 room 2, Estate of Mme X.