Albert Edelfelt

ALBERT EDELFELT, "AT SEA, CHARITY WASH"

Signed and dated in 1881, this ink wash was completed in Paris in January 1881 for auction at the Cercle de la Presse club in aid of a monument to the author Alexandre Dumas.
Literature: Letters from Paris by Albert Edelfelt to Alexandra E. dated 12 and 18 January 1881. SLS (Society of Swedish Literature in Finland).

At sea, charity wash, 1881, 23x16 cm.

"The dinners began at 4 o’clock in the morning. Yes, Judic really did auction the drawings. My biggest fear was that they would be sold one at a time, as then I would have had to endure the shame ahead of Neuville, Detaille, Boldin and so on, but luckily they went under the hammer as a single lot. In a quarter of an hour these 24 drawings fetched 16,000 francs. I do not recall the name of the young gentleman who bought them. Lindström and Fia succeeded on the whole, as I happened to hear the assembled gentlemen say some nice things about them when the drawings were exhibited." (Edelfelt in a letter to his mother from Paris dated Tuesday 18 January 1881.)

In summer 1880 Alexandra Edelfelt and her children moved into her own waterside dacha near Haikko Manor on the outskirts of Porvoo on the south coast of Finland. Her son Albert was continually seeking national subjects for an upcoming plein-air painting that he had to create for the Salon in Paris. The idea for this subject arose during a fishing expedition in the Porvoo Archipelago with his neighbour ten year-old Fia Salenius and Lindström, a local fisherman, serving as his models. Bertel Hintze suggests the boating subjects of Edouard Manet as a French precursor to this work. For example the 1879 exhibition at the Paris Salon included Manet’s En bateau, featuring the same kind of subject: a small sailboat with a man at the helm and a young woman.

Albert Edelfelt created the ink wash At sea in January 1881, working in his Paris studio at 147, avenue de Villiers, where he also kept sketches and studies (Hintze, catalogue no. 245) for a future Salon painting that was not completed until 1883. The work was exhibited at the Salon in the following year. It was originally sold for the collection of Pontus Fürstenberg which now belongs to the Gothenburg Art Museum. Edelfelt initially tried to sell the work to Tsar Alexander III of Russia, but was unsuccessful. I was privileged to view and document a miniature version of the final work in the archives of the State Hermitage Museum. Edelfelt had sent this as a gift to the Tsar in the hope of securing the sale.

The drawing that is now on sale was included in an album collection of 24 drawings made by various artists in support of a memorial statue to Alexandre Dumas. This album was sold for 16,000 francs at an auction held at the Cercle de la Presse gentlemen’s club, of which Albert Edelfelt was a member. The club was a place for gambling, dining and reading the newspapers. Several Scandinavian aristocrats were members, some with disastrous consequences, as in the case of Count Carl Robert Mannerheim.

The memorial statue to Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) was erected in 1883 near the Place Malesherbes (now the Place du Général Catroux) near to Edelfelt’s studio in the 17th arrondissement. The sculptor Gustave Doré portrays the author with quill in hand, and includes the titles of some of his best-known works, such as the Count of Monte Cristo and the Three Musketeers. The monument also includes a figure of the hero d'Artagnan in 17th century garb with sword drawn. Doré eventually completed this sculpture without charge after the monument group failed to raise all of the required funds.

Marina Catani