Juana Romani (1867 - 1924), acquired by the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art

Femme au fond rouge

Signed upper left: Juana Romani

Oil on panel

81 x 64.2 cm. (31 ¾ x 25 ¼ in.)

Provenance:

Anonymous sale, Mercier-Velliet-Thuillier, Lille, 26 March 2000, lot 351;

Private Collection, Lake Geneva;

Au bord du lac: An interior by François-Joseph Graf, Christie’s, London, 26 January 2022, lot 74.

‘Mlle. Juana Romani, pupil of Henner and of Roybet, has retained only the sense of mystery of the former and, thankfully, has rid herself of the false window dressing and stiltedness of the latter. Mlle Romani shows a series of female figures, clothed in the rich fabrics of the Middle Ages, with Velazquez bows and waves of golden hair. Though these faces can be psychologically shallow, they are pure motifs and an exquisite symphony of tonalities, painted with pearly whites à la Henner…and executed with a striking facility. She has a sense of scintillating luxury which her master Roybet is far from possessing….With her marvellous virtuosity she perfectly understands how to illuminate and harmonise the cold tones on a face, whose flesh radiates like an open fruit….Mlle. Romani’s pictorial temperament is of an energy very rare amongst female painters, yet is however not weighed down by masculine pretentions’.[1]

Camille Mauclair’s passage of purple prose extolling the talents of Romani, written in 1901, both encapsulates the type of work for which she was becoming famous by the turn of the century, the present painting being a particularly beautiful example, and the very high regard in which she was held by some of the leading art critics of the day, who almost unanimously praised her virtuoso talent with the brush.[2] Mauclair was not the only critic to believe that Romani had surpassed Roybet, no mean feat given his commercial success and the very high regard in which he was held by some members of the elite, although he did have his detractors it is fair to say. No less a critic than Louis Gonse wrote a few years earlier in 1896 that Romani was more technically talented than Roybet, who was himself well-known for his accomplishments in this regard. Gonse went on to say that Romani had more ‘grace, elegance, finesse and charm’ than Roybet and that her ‘impetuous audacity and joy would disarm even the most austere critic’.[3] Many more quotes along these lines could be cited.

Femme au fond rouge, whose original titles is lost but would almost certainly have been that of an Italian literary or historical heroine, likely dates to the last couple of years of the 19^th century or the first few years of the next. In terms of its quality and impact, the painting, in near perfect condition, is without a doubt one of Romani’s highest pictorial achievements. It can be compared with, for example, the Femme au noeud rouge, now lost but known through a lithographic poster published in 1903 in a calendar by the department store La Samaritaine (fig. 1)

Fig. 1, After Juana Romani, Femme au neoud rouge, 1903, lithograph,

Bibliotèque nationale de France

In comparison to La Venetienne, which is, as discussed, a transitional work moving away from Henner, Femme au fond rouge is very much in the distinctive and idiosyncratic ‘style à la Romani’. From 1892 onwards, Romani’s works tend to depict bust-length and otherworldly beauties, sometimes in profile but more often than not engaging directly with the viewer, head at a slight tilt, always clothed in sumptuous fabrics, and everything executed with daring, fluid and incredibly skilled brushwork. An early work in this series is La Fille de Théodora (fig. 2), shown at the Salon of 1893. Over the course of the 1890s Romani’s palette moves from colder hues of green, silver and blue to hotter yellows and reds, the latter visible in the background, full lips and gorgeous bow of the present painting. Femme au fond rouge, alongside the Samaritaine lithograph, distinguishes itself in the vibrant and patterned backdrop, at odds with Romani’s more usual scumbled, darker tones. Though how well she would have known their work it is difficult to say, there are certain parallels which can be drawn between Romani’s works from the turn of the century and the pre-Raphaelites active in Britain a couple of decades before.

In comparison to La Venetienne, which is, as discussed, a transitional work moving away from Henner, Femme au fond rouge is very much in the distinctive and idiosyncratic ‘style à la Romani’. From 1892 onwards, Romani’s works tend to depict bust-length and otherworldly beauties, sometimes in profile but more often than not engaging directly with the viewer, head at a slight tilt, always clothed in sumptuous fabrics, and everything executed with daring, fluid and incredibly skilled brushwork. An early work in this series is La Fille de Théodora (fig. 2), shown at the Salon of 1893. Over the course of the 1890s Romani’s palette moves from colder hues of green, silver and blue to hotter yellows and reds, the latter visible in the background, full lips and gorgeous bow of the present painting. Femme au fond rouge, alongside the Samaritaine lithograph, distinguishes itself in the vibrant and patterned backdrop, at odds with Romani’s more usual scumbled, darker tones. Though how well she would have known their work it is difficult to say, there are certain parallels which can be drawn between Romani’s works from the turn of the century and the pre-Raphaelites active in Britain a couple of decades before.

Fig. 2, Juana Romani, La Fille de Théodora, 1892, oil on panel,

81 x 63 cm, Private Collection