Portrait de Marcel Proust

Jacques-Emile Blanche
Portrait de Marcel Proust
en 1892
huile sur toile
H. 73,5 ; L. 60,5 cm.
Dation, 1989
© Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt
Jacques-Emile Blanche (1861 - 1942)
Artwork not currently exhibited in the museum
Other artworks from artist

Jacques-Emile Blanche, an admired portraitist in the 1880s, portrayed Proust as a young man, aged 21, when he was still only a social chronicler. Blanche was then developing a brilliant, rapid technique; but this portrait is highly restrained and particularly powerful.
The young dandy is presented in a front view, in a hieratic pose (the painting was probably originally a full-length portrait). The contrast between the very dark tones of his suit and the background and the flesh-coloured face and collar, toning with the white orchid in his buttonhole, is particularly striking. The sharp outlines, the fluid paint, and the delicate strokes bring out a sense of inner feelings. Young Proust with his great dark eyes and sensual mouth is already a little more than a dandy: the perfect oval of his face and the pallor of his complexion give him a grave almost Christ like look. That probably explains why this portrait has remained the best-known and most accurate representation of the man who was not yet the author of Remembrance of Things Past. Proust kept this painting until he died in 1922.

Other artworks from artist

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