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drawing of a large building with a clock on the top of itan image of a painting of a building with a clock on itpainting of a large building with a clock on the top of ita picture of a picture of a man and a womana picture of a picture of a picture of a mountain
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2231 - Raoul Dufy (1877–1953), *La Salute*, 1938, watercolour on pa…
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Estimate CHF 20,000 - CHF 30,000
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Description
Raoul Dufy (1877–1953), *La Salute*, 1938, watercolour on paper, signed with a stamp, 47 × 62.5 cm (visible area) Provenance: Galerie Motte, Geneva, 27 November 1965, lot 32, private collection, Switzerland; Piguet, Geneva, 7 October 2015, lot 1034, private collection, Switzerland (acquired from the previous provenance) Bibliography: Fanny Guillon-Laffaille, Raoul Dufy: Catalogue Raisonné of Watercolours, Gouaches and Pastels, Vol. 1, Ed. Louis Carré & Cie, 1981–1982, p. 108, no. 299 *La Salute* forms part of the significant series of views of Venice produced by Raoul Dufy during his stay in the lagoon city in 1938. The Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute, the Esclavons Quay, the Doge’s Palace, the Rialto Bridge and the Grand Canal provided him with a wealth of subjects through which to continue his exploration of light, colour and the independence of line and the coloured surface. The fluidity of the watercolour allows Dufy to let light flow through the colour, whilst the drawing retains its autonomy. Architectural forms are not confined to a rigorous depiction, but are suggested by a lively and supple style, whilst areas of colour freely organise the space. Venice, with the reflections of the lagoon, the transparency of its atmosphere and the lightness of its architecture, thus provided a setting particularly suited to this approach to painting. From the 1920s onwards, Dufy gradually developed a visual language based on the separation of line and colour. The line structures the composition, whilst the colour, freed from the outline, possesses its own autonomy and conveys, above all, a sensation of light. In the Venetian watercolours of 1938, this approach achieves a remarkable freedom: a few lines suffice to evoke the architecture, whilst the washes and patches of colour capture the ever-changing atmosphere of the lagoon. Fourteen years after the completion of *La Salute*, Venice also became the setting for one of the major accolades of Dufy’s career. In 1952, forty-one of his works were exhibited at the French Pavilion at the 26th Venice Biennale. On this occasion, the artist was awarded the International Grand Prix for Painting, a major recognition of a body of work that had, for several decades, been devoted to the relationship between line, colour and light. The City of the Doges thus symbolically links two important moments in his career: his explorations of light in 1938 and their international recognition in 1952.
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About the sale Art from the Orient and the Far East – Paintings and sculptures
Auction location
Auction time 09/23/2026 at 10:00 AM
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