Lot 106: Léonce J. V. de Joncières , French 1871-1947 Un Déjeuner D'ouvrières aux Tuileries oil on canvas

signed L. de Joncieres and dated 1901 (lower right) oil on canvas

measurements 40 1/4 by 59 in. alternate measurements 102.2 by 149.9 cm

Paris, Société des Artistes Français, Catalogue illustré du Salon de 1901, p. 96, no. 1099, illustrated

Sale: Sotheby's, New York, May 22, 1991, lot 69, illustrated
Acquired by the present owner at the above sale

In Un Déjeuner D'ouvrières aux Tuileries Leonce J.V. de Joncières depicts a group of young working-class women enjoying their lunch on an early fall day in the Tuileries Garden in Paris. In the nineteenth century, public parks were an integral component in the development of the modern city and became the acceptable stage for the debut of women in the public sphere. The Tuileries Garden - surrounded by the Louvre to the east, the Seine to the south, the Place de la Concorde to the west and the Rue de Rivoli to the north - is arguably the most impressive and important of the Parisian parks, covering 63 acres. With its central location and beautifully designed grounds, it attracted women of all classes, and contemporary artists were drawn to the social spectacle that unfolded. In "Women in Public: The Display of Femininity in the Parks of Paris," Greg M. Thomas argues that "parks allowed alternative views of femininity and modernity to be staged in Paris" and that in many "park pictures" by artists such as Manet, Tissot and Cassatt "women are depicted as active viewers and consumers of public spectacle" (The Invisible Flâneuse? Gender, Public Space, and Visual Culture in Nineteenth-Century Paris, Manchester, United Kingdom, 2006, p. 34). The "shop girl" - here depicted taking lunch with her co-workers - forever altered public perception of traditional female roles. Perhaps on a break from the nearby Maison Paquin, the most prominent women's fashion house at the time, they sit and relax, sharing their simple, homemade lunches and bottles of wine in the bustling Parisian gardens. They are not the elegant ladies shopping along the Champs-Elysées, nor the well-dressed mothers with nannies watching their children, but rather a new class of modern Parisian working-class women who emerged during the rise of the bourgeosie in France in the late nineteenth century. Their social status is communicated by their simple, conservative dress and the strikingly casual nature of their lunch. Two women seem to be just arriving or perhaps on their way back to work; one leans an empty bottle of wine on the ground as she just filled (or perhaps re-filled) her glass; a chair has fallen over and no one seems to pay much mind. De Joncières skillfully renders the grouping of women by accurately foreshortening and overlapping forms. His sensitive handling of the paint creates carefully modeled shapes and highly-detailed passages. His keen sense of perspective aptly conveys a deep recession into space as well as accentuates the distinctive horizontality of the gardens as they are enclosed by a canopy of trees. Judging by its impressive scale and scope, Un Déjeuner D'ouvrières aux Tuileries was likely intended as an exhibition work and is today a compelling window onto changing gender roles and the advent of the modern woman in nineteenth century Paris.