Lot 105: Louis-Joseph-Raphaël Collin , French 1850-1916 The Blue Kimono oil on canvas

signed R. COLLIN (lower right) oil on canvas

measurements 15 1/8 by 22 in. alternate measurements 38.4 by 55.8 cm

A student of Bouguereau, Cabanel, Moret and Benjamin Constant, Collin employed classical modeling and carefully drawn lines in his early works to paint historical, religious and allegorical subjects. As the artist matured, he grew to appreciate the Impressionists' plein air techniques of a lighter palette and softer brush, as well as the Nabi and Symbolist movements, inspiring aesthetic compositions of decorative effects and moody feel. Such a confluence of styles is evident in The Blue Kimono, with its well drawn female figure, loosely wrapped in delicately painted silks decorated with dusty pinks and mint green flowers, as a gentle light spills over a grassy landscape of loosely painted vegetation, a pagoda and glossy sea behind. The overall effect is both contemporary and classical, with an obvious element of the exotic in its Japanese motif. Collin was an avid collector of antiques, and his collection of Asian pottery reveals his interest in japonisme, Europe's cultural obsession with Asian decorative objects, the result of the American Commodore Matthew Perry's opening of Japan in the mid-1850s. Among the most desirable objects of any fashionable collection was the Japanese fan. From the early 1860's mass production techniques allowed for vast quantities of fans that satisfied the ever growing demand for "something Japanese"--thus providing a novel visual stimulus to artists (Lionel Lambourne, Japonisme: Cultural Crossings between Japan and the West, New York, 2005, p. 112). Indeed, not only is Collin's subject holding a delicate paper fan, a symbol of her distant culture, but his composition also recreates the types of illustrations often found on the fans themselves. While The Blue Kimono may be Collin's only Japanese themed composition, his appreciation and impact on Asian culture was substantial. The Japanese artists Kuroda Seiki and Kume Keiichiro (among others) entered Collin's studio and, in returning home to professorships at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, introduced their mentor's Western teaching methods (Christine M.E. Guth, Alicia Volk and Emiko Yamanashi, Impressionism, Postimpressionism and the Modern Era, Japan & Paris, exh. cat., Honolulu, 2004, p. 68). Collin was also known for his close association with the Japanese art dealer active in Paris, Hayashi Tadamasa, and many of his works entered Asian collections in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.