Albert Edelfelt

The Paris Exposition of 1889 is where Albert Edelfelt gained worldwide fame as a portrait painter. Edelfelt submitted six portraits, the most famous of which is the portrait of scientist Louis Pasteur, now in the Musee d’Orsay. Of the 16 awards given to Finnish artists Albert Edelfelt was awarded the highest honour, the Medaille d’honneur. He also rose in ranks and was appointed officer of the Legion of Honour. As a comparison it can be mentioned that Helene Schjerfbeck was awarded a third-class medal, the only one she ever received in Paris.

While in Paris Edelfelt received his customers in his large atelier on 147 Avenue du Villiers, complete with numerous windows and balconettes. One day a week the atelier was open to visitors – it was cleaned and tidied and paintings in various states of finish were placed on easels for display. It is in this glass cage, as he himself called his studio that he painted his portrait of Madame Cohen who was married to a Jewish banker. Edelfelt’s aristocratic social circles in France included a number of wealthy Jewish families who commissioned portraits of him. Jewish women had a reputation of beauty, which was upheld by a group of professional models, belle juives, who were painted by Finnish artists such as Adolf von Becker and Helene Schjerfbeck.

Madame Cohen is seated in a rococo rattan chair, wearing a white dress, long gloves in yellowish-beige chamois leather and black shoes. The chair she is seated in was probably borrowed from Edelfelt’s home on the same street. The Edelfelt home was decorated in a historical style with furniture form the 18th century. His wife Ellan Edelfelt did not approve of any new styles and dried flowers as was the fashion at the time. The set of the portrait could well be from a Parisian socialite home; to the right is an escritoire and to the left an oriental table with a vase of flowers and a silver bowl. At the back we can see an item typically found in artists’ studios: a folding screen both used to block the light from the windows and for the models to get changed behind. Edelfelt also used the screens to protect him from the cold in his sleeping area above the studio. The floor is covered with Edelfelt’s oriental rugs and a light bear hide. During portrait sessions the socialite ladies were accompanied by attendants, or a maid if they were changing their dress for the portrait. When she had her portrait painted, Madame Cohen was accompanied by Mr Leonmard, a wealthy 50-year-old man who kept her company to make his afternoons go by.

This portrait was painted in the early summer of 1890, a time during which Edelfelt was very keen to live up to his reputation in Paris. His works shows skilled and varied brushwork based on his admiration for the spiritual studies made by Anders Zorn from the spring of 1890. This can be seen in the quick and delicate brushwork on the bluebells in the vase to the left. Edelfelt spent a long time on his portraits, compared with Zorn who painted six portraits in the same time that Edelfelt finished one.

Marina Catani