Mathilde Maujan Van Donghen (1868-1960), Portrait Of A Woman With A Cigarette, Circa 1910, Pastel

Mathilde Maujan Van Donghen (1868-1960)
Portrait of a woman with a cigarette, circa 1910
Pastel on paper Signed lower right
52 x 43 cm
Sold in its original frame with some traces of wear

Born Mathilde Céline van Donghen in 1868 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the artist married the politician Adolphe Maujan (1853-1914) in 1898 (former deputy and senator of the Seine, undersecretary of state and founder of the newspaper La France libre).

Mathilde Maujan van Donghen took painting lessons from Benjamin-Constant (1845-1902), Jules Lefebvre (1936-1911) and Jean-Paul Laurens (1838-1921). She exhibited for the first time in 1894 on the occasion of the 41st exhibition of the Society of Friends of Artists of Seine and Oise in Versailles. In 1898, she became a member of the Société populaire des beaux-arts. Her work, and more particularly her portraits, is praised by the art critic Louis Vauxcelles in a review of the Salon des Artistes Français of 1908 published in Gil Blas: “La Grand'mère by Mathilde Maujan van Donghen is a very small painting with an exquisite sense of tranquility and a broad and frank execution, despite its cramped dimensions. The movement of the hand that pulls the needle is elegantly correct, the look of the grandmother expressive and gentle. The air fills this pretty canvas with a delicately peaceful harmony.”

The pastel portrait of a woman that we present is part of the iconography of the smoker introduced into Dutch genre painting in the 17th century following the importation of tobacco into Europe from the New World. The figure of the smoking woman is present in 19th century orientalist painting which depicts smoky female nudes.

Following the industrial revolution, the cigarette acquired the status of an object reflecting modernity, popularized by figures such as Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923). Women of good French and Anglo-Saxon society, embodying the “new woman”, thus adopted cigarettes in the 1900s (ill.1 & ill.2). They wear it with elegance and audacity as evidenced by the photographs and portraits popular during the Belle Époque, like those of Paul-César Helleu (1859-1927) (ill.3). After the war, the cigarette became one of the symbols of female emancipation, praised by advertising imagery.

Mathilde Maujan van Donghen's model wears a typical outfit from the 1900s-1910s. She looks at the viewer in an impertinent, even provocative attitude, her face smoked by the cigarette nonchalantly brought to her mouth.

© Aurélie Biot-Worms