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a painting of a bunch of flowers in a vasea painting of a bunch of flowers in a frame
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60 - Anna de Brancovan, Countess of Noailles (1876–1933), pastel …
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Estimate €1,000 - €1,500
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Description
Anna de Brancovan, Countess of Noailles (1876–1933), pastel artist Bouquet of Flowers Pastel on paper Signed with a monogram in the lower left-hand corner 62.5 x 48.5 cm (image size) With frame, 70 x 56 cm Her floral pastels Behind her ever-present voice and words, a parallel and silent artistic practice developed from around 1926–1927: floral pastels. This shift towards drawing took place against a backdrop of physical decline and gradual isolation caused by illness. Pastel painting does not appear to have been merely a parlour pastime, but rather a genuine alternative aesthetic endeavour. Whilst the writer, haunted by death and nothingness, stripped her poetic writing down to its bare essentials in her collection *L’Honneur de souffrir* (1927), her graphic work compensated for this loss with an explosion of clarity, vivid colours and light. Her floral still lifes, composed of bouquets of hydrangeas, poppies, dahlias, roses and daisies, thus stand out as the material extension of a sensory pantheism that could no longer be expressed through the means of the classical alexandrine alone. Anna de Noailles’s artistic practice is characterised by a very precise, both sensual and technical, relationship with the material, extensively documented by the art historian François Maillet in his seminal research under the supervision of Claire Barbillon at the University of Poitiers. To bring her floral visions to life, the Countess turned to the finest craftsmen of her time, forging a special bond with the prestigious Maison du Pastel. Noailles expressed boundless admiration for the luminous vibrancy of these pure pigments, dedicating words to Henri Roché that highlight the intimate kinship between painting and poetry: To Mr Henri Roché, who, to the delight of painters and poets alike, has brought together, with the surest of talents, all the nuances of the universe in his radiant pastels. Technically speaking, the Countess did not use pastels to achieve the misty, blurred effects typical of the eighteenth century, but worked by layering hatched strokes and by pressing dry pigment directly onto coarse-grained paper. This vigorous technique allowed her to capture the light and lend a physical, almost three-dimensional presence to the corollas of the flowers. This creative frenzy unfolded within a confined physical space: her famous ‘chambre aux cretonnes’ in her flat on Rue Scheffer, where she lived from 1906 to 1933. Like her friend Marcel Proust, who wrote his work whilst lying in his secluded cork-lined room, Anna de Noailles worked whilst lying in her copper bed. It was from this bed, which became her ultimate studio, that she worked with her boxes of pastels—purchased mainly from the retailer Dupré & Cie at 141, Faubourg Saint-Honoré, or from the Blanchet firm, covering her sheets with coloured powder to ward off the darkness of her illness. The year 1927 marked a critical turning point and a moment of public recognition for Anna de Noailles’ pastels. In June of that year, as she began to experience the first symptoms of a serious brain condition, she took the risk of exhibiting her paintings in Paris. The success was resounding. The official opening, which took place on 22 June 1927, received extensive media coverage, notably from the daily newspaper *Le Soir*, and was presided over by the statesman Édouard Herriot, then Minister for Public Instruction and Fine Arts, who posed alongside the poet in front of her floral still lifes.
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About the sale René Benjamin, the 20th-century Balzac scholar
Auction location
Auction time 10/06/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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