The Baou de Saint-Jeannet

Catalogue entry

Raoul Dufy 1877-1953

T02133 Le Baou de Saint-Jeannet (The Baou de Saint-Jeannet) 1923

Inscribed 'Raoul Dufy' b.l.
Oil on canvas, 25 3/8 x 31 3/4 (64.5 x 81)
Bequeathed by John Levy to the National Gallery 1977; transferred 1977
Prov: [?With Vildrac, Paris]; private collector, Harrow; E. Teltsch, London; with O'Hana Gallery, London, 1954; John Levy, London, 1955
Lit: Maurice Laffaille, Raoul Dufy (Geneva 1973), No.579, Vol.2, p.141 repr. as 'Le Baou de Saint-Jeannet'

The village of Saint-Jeannet near Vence (Alpes-Maritimes) appears in the middle distance, half-way up the hillside, with the huge crag of the Baou de Saint-Jeannet behind. Laffaille reproduces this and ten other oil paintings of Saint-Jeannet and the Baou de Saint-Jeannet, of which the closest is a rather larger picture now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, which was reproduced in Raoul Dufy (Sélection, Antwerp 1928), p.51 with the date 1923 (Laffaille No. 580). As the two works are very similar in handling and both show storm clouds gathered round the hills, it seems likely that they were painted within a short time of one another.

Little is known about the early provenance of this picture, which did not pass through the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune and was probably sold to one of the other dealers such as Mme Rose Vildrac, who shared a contract with the artist. An auction stamp on the stretcher establishes that it was among a number of works sent to Christie's in October 1941 by a private collector living in Harrow, none of which was included in a sale. The identity of the collector has not been disclosed, but it was not E. Teltsch.

Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.194-5, reproduced p.194

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