Henri Edmond Cross (1856-1910), Study Of Drapery, Preparatory Drawing (orsay), Studio Stamp

Henri-Edmond Cross (1856- 1910)
Study of drapery and hand: preparatory drawing for the Portrait of Madame Cross, c. 1901
Charcoal on paper
27.2 x 20 cm
Studio stamp visible lower left "H.E.C.". (Lugt 1305a)

Good condition
Framed, under glass
dimensions with frame: 47 x 38 cm

Preparatory drawing for the Musée d'Orsay painting: Portrait de Madame Cross, circa 1901, oil on canvas, 92.2 x 73.2cm, inv. LUX 1369 (link to the museum's online catalogue: https://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/oeuvres/portrait-de-madame-cross-78093)

Provenance: certainly part of lot no. 70 of the posthumous sale of Cross's studio, Paris, 1921: "10 études de drapés" ; private collection, France

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This very subtle drawing allows us to study the perfectionist side of certain avant-garde painters, namely Seurat, Signac and Henri-Edmond Cross, who looked to the old masters for their own passion, their own education, and who retained both a sense of detail and of harmony in the overall composition.

To ensure that the portrait of his wife was perfect, Henri-Edmond Cross left nothing to chance. The proof is in this drawing, which can be dated to around 1900-1901, since it is preparatory to the 1901 painting which was then donated by the artist's widow to the Musée du Luxembourg in 1921, and is now in the collections of the Musée d'Orsay and on loan to the Musée de la Chartreuse in Douai, the painter's home town.

In a beautiful juxtaposition, in the soft nuances of charcoal, the artist brings together on a single sheet the study of the two sleeves of his wife's dress. The idea is to bring the most precise details of this dress to the painter's easel, captured while she was modeling for him.

Born Irma Clare (1849 - 1933), Madame Cross was the artist's most beautiful model. He had already painted her portrait in 1891, when she was still Madame Hector France (also in the Musée d'Orsay collections: https://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/oeuvres/portrait-de-madame-henri-edmond-cross-153), and this time, in 1901, he painted her as Madame Cross, with more closeness, in the gaze, in the pose and in that spring dress, worn with the sleeves delicately rolled up, as we can see.

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Extract from the catalogue "Henri-Edmond Cross et le Néo-impressionnisme de Seurat à Matisse" (2011) :
"The preparatory studies and sketches are moving and edifying evidence of the artist's creative process. As Isabelle Compin, a leading specialist in his work, sums up, they 'undoubtedly constitute an important stage in the genesis of a work which, far from being a direct transcription of the motif, is a search for balance between the first impression and its reasoned transformation'. Through these works, Henri Edmond Cross shows himself to be constantly learning about nature. These works exude a poetic sense of reality, bringing us face to face with the masterpiece in the painter's mind."



A very subtle watercolour by Henri-Edmond Cross is also available in our gallery, in a freer, more luminous style : available here