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Artist or Maker: Paul Delvaux (1897-1994)
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Provenance: Paul Spaak, Brussels, by 1936.
Galerie Robert Finck, Brussels.
M. Bruynswick, Brussels.
Joachim-Jean Aberbach, Sands Point, New York.
Julian Aberbach, New York, by descent from the above.
Anonymous sale, Palais Galliera, Paris, 18 May 1975.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.
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Exhibited: Brussels, Palais des Beaux Arts, Paul Delvaux, April - May 1936, no. 1.
The Hague, Esher Surrey Galleries, Paul Delvaux, February - March 1937, no. 6.
Brussels, Galerie R. Finck, Exposition de peinture belge moderne, May 1963, no. 35 (illustrated).
Brussels, Musée d'Ixelles, Paul Delvaux, November - December 1967, no. 1.
Paris, Musée des Arts décoratifs, Rétrospective Paul Delvaux, May - July 1969, no. 2 (illustrated).
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-Van Beuningen, Paul Delvaux, April - June 1973, no. 2 (p. 111; illustrated); this exhibition later travelled to Knokke-Heist, Casino, June - September 1973, no. 2 (p. 103).
Osaka, Museum of Art of Daimaru, Paul Delvaux, October - November 1983, no. 2; this exhibition later travelled to Himeji, City Art Museum, January 1984; Tokyo, Isetan Art Museum, February 1984 and Toyama, Museum of Modern Art, April 1984.
Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Paul Delvaux, 1897 - 1994, March - July 1997, no. 15 (illustrated p. 70).
Turin, Palazzo Bricherasio, Le Surréalisme de Paul Delvaux, October 2005 - January 2006.
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Literature: C. Spaak, 'Paul Delvaux', in Cahiers de Belgique, Brussels, February 1931, vol. IV, no. 2, p. 60.
A. Eggermont, 'Les Arts plastiques', in Le Thyrse, Brussels, March 1931, p. 104.
S. Houbart-Wilkin, 'Paul Delvaux, peintre surréaliste ou classique de la surréalité', in Savoir et Beauté, La Louvière, March 1961, no. 2-3, p. 2439.
P. Caso, 'La vie artistique. Paul Delvaux au Musée d'Ixelles', in Le Soir, Bruxelles, 30 November 1967.
A. de Bock, Paul Delvaux, Brussels, 1967, p. 287 (illustrated pl. 5).
E. Crispolti, 'Paul Delvaux', in exh. cat. Alternative Attuali 3, Rassegna Internazionale d'Arte Contemporanea, L'Aquila, 1968, p. 1.112.
Jardin des Arts, no. 14, Paris, May 1969 (illustrated p. 70).
A. Fermigier, 'Les femmes nues de Paul Delvaux', in Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 3 June 1969.
J. P. Dauriac, 'Rétrospective Paul Delvaux au Musée des Arts décoratifs à Paris', in Panthéon, Munich, XXVII, September - October 1969, p. 426.
J. J. Levêque, 'Paul Delvaux l'énigmatique', in La Galerie, Paris, February 1972, no. 113, p. 40.
J. Vovelle, Le Surréalisme en Belgique, Brussels, 1972, pp. 171, 190, 193 (illustrated no. 119).
De Nieuwe Gids, Brussels, 15 July 1973.
M. Butor, J. Clair & S. Houbart-Wilkin, Paul Delvaux, Brussels, 1975, no. 37, p. 156 (illustrated p. 157).
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Notes: THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE BELGIAN COLLECTOR
A forest full of naked figures, most of them female-- are these the bathers of Titian and Cézanne? Or are they stranger, more alien nymphs? Painted in 1928, Les filles de la forêt dates from the very year that Delvaux first began to explore what would become his most famous theme, the female nude. It therefore dates from the formative years during which he was beginning to touch upon the strange poetry that lends his works their engaging potency. Les filles de la forêt is permeated with a sense of mystery that anticipates his Surreal pictures. While in his own statements Delvaux claimed that his first Surreal picture was painted in 1934, the fact that sleeping Venuses and other similar themes had featured in his works for several years shows that the process was slower, and that it began much earlier. Indeed, the initial epiphany that would ultimately lead to Delvaux' exploration of the surreal was his discovery of the Pittura Metafisica of Giorgio de Chirico, several years before Les filles de la forêt was painted.
While Les filles de la forêt shares little in terms of visible content with de Chirico, it nonetheless shares an affinity in its use of strange juxtapositions that seem to teeter on the brink of our understanding, of elements from the everyday world given a new context that introduces an atmosphere that is faintly discomforting. In a sense, Delvaux has used a de Chirico-like recipe in order to evoke his own unique insight into the unusual and the uncanny. For this scene, littered with serious-faced yet frolicking female figures, has overtones of the ritual, as though there was some hieratic purpose behind their actions. The impression that the orgy in the background is somehow a part of some strange ceremony, that we are being granted a privileged yet perhaps stolen glance at a world of arcane activity, is heightened by the presence of the two women in the foreground. The confrontational gaze of the left-hand figure engages the viewer with a directness that speaks of authority, of certainty, of the logic and rightness of the happenings within the world of the picture. And in the slight smile that plays across her lips, Les filles de la forêt hints that for the people in their realm, enlightenment of some form lies within their grasp.
The art historical importance of Les filles de la forêt is reflected in the extensive list of exhibitions in which it featured, and is likewise matched by its links to Belgian history: this picture was formerly in the collection of Paul-Henri Spaak, a classmate of Delvaux who later came to be the Belgian Prime Minister both before and after the Second World War. He also participated prominently in the government-in-exile. His brother, Claude Spaak, was one of the foremost supporters and patrons of Belgian Surrealism, a great friend of Magritte, and accumulated an impressive array of works by both that painter and Delvaux.
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