Abbéma, Louise (1853-1927)
Sarah Bernhardt à table (Sarah Bernhardt at the Table)
1885
Gouache and pastel on paper mounted on canvas, 64 x 91 cm
Petit Palais, Paris
Louise Abbéma, born in Étampes in 1853 and died in Paris in 1927, led a brilliant career as an artist in the second half of the 19th century. Highly celebrated during her lifetime, she frequented the most prominent Parisian circles, particularly the world of theater (she herself was descended from a famous late 18th-century actress, Louise Contat, who in 1784 created the role of Suzanne in Beaumarchais‘s The Mariage de Figaro), and specialized in portraits of actresses.
She is best known today for the long friendship—and undoubtedly a romantic relationship in its early stages—that she maintained with Sarah Bernhardt, from the 1870s until the famous actress’s death in 1923. Like the painter Georges Clairin, also a lover and later a friend of Sarah Bernhardt, Louise Abbéma was among the actress’s inner circle: she accompanied her on her many trips in France and abroad, notably to her summer residence on Belle-Île-en-Mer. Louise Abbéma tirelessly portrayed Sarah Bernhardt, employing all the techniques of drawing and painting.
Her first portrait, exhibited at the Salon in 1876, marked the beginning of the two women’s relationship and brought the young painter renown. Now lost, this first portrait was the prelude to a long series of paintings and drawings depicting Sarah Bernhardt, sometimes on stage, sometimes backstage. Some of these portraits are held in French public collections (Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt as Marie de Neubourg in Ruy Blas, Paris, Musée Carnavalet; Luncheon in the Greenhouse, Pau, Musée des Beaux-Arts), but many others (particularly drawings) have been dispersed and appear sporadically on the art market.
The pastel in the Petit Palais depicts Sarah Bernhardt at a table, enjoying a light meal of cherries and wine. The actress is recognizable by her slender figure and her “fluffy” red hair, styled in a high chignon characteristic of the actress’s hairstyle in the 1870s and 1880s. She wears an elegant day dress, trimmed with fur, which reflects her taste for fashion and contrasts, in its simplicity, with the exuberance of the stage costumes in which artists (Clairin, Mucha, etc.) often portrayed Sarah Bernhardt.
Abbéma thus delivers a captivating and intimate portrait of his friend, offering a rare image of the actress “as she truly is,” far removed from any staged scene. The portrait also provides Abbéma with the opportunity to create a beautiful still life of fruit and flowers, very similar to those found in other works by the artist, such as Luncheon in the Greenhouse at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Pau, which also depicts Sarah Bernhardt in an intimate setting. (Petit Palais)
See also:
• Bernhardt, Sarah (1844-1923)