Marcel Lenoir (1871 - 1931) - Lot 358

Marcel Lenoir (1871 - 1931) Standing nude Ink on paper signed at top 19.7 x 12.5 cm "We are delighted to confirm the authentication of this original work by the artist Marcel-Lenoir, as rightly announced by the auction house L'Huillier & Associés. We date this work to the artist's third creative period: the period of maturity between 1914-1931, and more specifically, for this ink on paper, around 1920-1925. It would seem that this female nude, shown standing upright, is set with supple, undulating lines, asserting itself as full-bodied and overflowing with generous forms, against a background streaked with hatching, diagonals and parallel lines, On the one hand, with one of her hands, she carefully veils and conceals her sex, while on the other hand, she preciously holds up a dove, an offering between her two breasts, a bird that reappears several times during this final creative period in the artist's iconography, corpus and catalog raisonné. In this way, Marcel-Lenoir pays a vibrant tribute to a sacralized femininity, caught between the profane and religious worlds, a beneficent maternal source, welcoming and as if soon ready to give life and deliver her milk, also, modest, solemn and virtuous, similar to a Marian figure and image of the dove, a symbol of innocence, purity, peace and tenderness, also a symbol of courtly love of modesty and fidelity offered to Aphrodite, goddess of love since Antiquity... From then on, this female nude, in ink on paper, is executed vigorously, hastily and forcefully, and is indisputably characteristic of the Master of the Line. And it's one of the miniatures so dear to Marcel-Lenoir's heart, this one framed for the occasion, as was so often the Lenoirian custom at the time, transforming the miniature into a distinguished and remarkable framed "tableau". In addition, it can happily enter into correspondence with the miniature collection of the Musée Marcel-Lenoir".