Lot 114: Charles Albert Pesnelle , French late 19th century The Serpent Dancers (The Maharajah's Entertainment) oil on canvas

signed Albert Pesnelle and dated 1892 (lower left) oil on canvas

measurements 46 1/2 by 61 1/2 in. alternate measurements 118.1 by 156.5 cm

Sale: Christie's, New York, February 12, 1998, lot 102, illustrated

PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR, NEW YORK
Between a pair of pietra dura panels, a maharajah sits enthroned. His attention is focused on a performance that takes place below his elevated stage. Flowers cascade down the stairwell and lie at the feet of a formidable guard, spear in hand. Beside him, a patient lion lays in wait. The architecture is opulent, the atmosphere thick. Stained glass windows have been opened, to invite the air. As the crescent moon rises, the spectacle is at its height. The crash of cymbals underscores the drama: A lithe young woman, head thrown back, holds a snake aloft. Its sinuous form is repeated throughout the composition, in the twisting hips of the nautch (Indian dancing) girls, balanced on their toe-tips, in the spiral bases of two smoldering censers to the maharajah's left and right, and in the siva-like figures that adorn both windowpanes. These organic shapes, pulled from printed sources, are eloquent counterpoints to the rigid body of the maharajah; scepter in hand, legs crossed, he is an imposing study in vertical and geometric forms. (This figure resembles earlier studies of the Indian Prince Fakhr-ud Din Mirza, particularly those by William Carpenter; the motifs in the stained glass windows, on the other hand, recall contemporary photographs of the Elephanta caves. The image of a female serpent charmer was not based in fact; rather it may have been inspired by other Orientalist paintings, most famously by Jean-Léon Gérôme [see The Snake Charmer, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute].) Just below the maharajah, a European woman reclines upon a cushioned divan.υ She pays no mind to the dancers before her, instead extending her arm toward some unseen event. This simple gesture connects Pesnelle's work with another dancing scene, of sixteen years before. Once the similarity is noted, a hundred seem to follow, and a story surges forth. Gustave Moreau's Salomé Dancing before Herod was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1876. The subject, drawn from the Bible, struck at very center of Europe's fin de siècle imagination: A fair princess who danced for the King, only to demand the head of St. John the Baptist on a platter, Salomé embodied the beautiful and cruel femme fatale. In Moreau's interpretation of the theme, new elements have been added: exotic architecture, delicate flowers, a panther and a guard. The similarities with Pesnelle's vast painting are clear. More than a colonial pastiche, then, drawn from prejudicial fantasies and misconstrued facts, the jeweled surface and hallucinatory effect of The Serpent Dancers may be seen as an evocative response to Moreau's own, Symbolist masterpiece. This catalogue note was written by Dr. Emily M. Weeks.