Georges Rouault

The Italian Woman

1938

© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2020

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Not on display

Artist: Georges Rouault 1871–1958
Original title: L'Italienne
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 651 × 498 mm
frame: 1086 × 960 × 56 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased 1949
Reference: N05906

Display caption

Little is known about the subject of this work, but the painting is similar in style and composition to a number of frontal views of the heads of male and female clowns painted by the artist in 1937 and 1938. Rouault rarely painted portraits, preferring instead to use the human figure as a symbol of certain moral qualities or, more generally, to express the sufferings of mankind. The woman in this painting wears modern dress, but the treatment of her head distantly recalls traditional religious pictures, particularly Byzantine icons.

Gallery label, August 2004

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Catalogue entry

Georges Rouault 1871-1958

N05906 L'Italienne (Italian Woman) 1938
Inscribed 'G Rouault.' b.r.
Oil on canvas, 25 5/8 x 19 5/8 (65 x 50)
Purchased from the Galerie Bing (Knapping Fund) 1949
Prov: With Ambroise Vollard, Paris (purchased from the artist); with Galerie Bing, Paris
Repr: Arts, 10-16 July 1952, p.1; Studio, CXLVII, 1954, p.6

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, p.666, reproduced p.666