Beschreibung:

Rebecca au puits huile sur toile; signé et date en bas a gauche E. Vernet Lecomte 1869 114 x 79,5 cm; 43 7/8 x 30 1/4 in. oil on canvas; signed and dated lower left E. Vernet Lecomte 1869 PROVENANCE Vente, New York, 9 octobre 1974, titre Jeune Marocaine; Acquis a la precedente par Pierre Berge et Yves Saint Laurent EXPOSITION New York, Hammer Galleries, The Goddess and the Slave. Women in Nineteenth Century Art, juin-juillet 1977, titre Rebecca, illustre sur la couverture Issu d'une famille de peintres illustres, Emile Lecomte Vernet est le fils du peintre Hippolyte Lecomte et le neveu d'Horace Vernet. Il etudia avec son oncle et avec Leon Cogniet. Il voyagea en Algerie, au Maroc et en Egypte. A partir de 1843, il exposa regulierement au Salon de Paris, notamment des sujets orientalistes inspires de ses voyages en Orient. L'un de ses toiles les plus celebres, Femme Fellah portant son enfant, a ete realise au Caire et exposee au Salon de 1864. Elle est aujourd'hui conservee au musee de la Roche-sur-Yon. Il existe une gravure d'apres notre tableau, editee par "Gravure Goupil et Cie". Son of painter Hippolyte Lecomte and nephew of Horace Vernet Emile Lecomte Vernet studied with his uncle and with Leon Cogniet. He traveled to Algeria, Morocco and Egypt. From 1843, he regularly exhibits at the Paris Salon orientalist subjects among others. A print after this composition was edited by "Gravure Goupil et Cie". WE MET IN 1986…We met in 1986 at the unveiling of Carole Weisweiler’s home, which I had just completed. I had just turned 30 and this small house was one of my first projects. Pierre approached me and said, in his inimitable tone, “You have soooo much talent, I’m sure we’ll meet again...!” Pierre was living at the Lutetia then, where Jacques had designed a lovely apartment for him. We would run into each other at the Monday concerts at the Théâtre de l’Athénée, at Saint Laurent’s runway shows and at his birthday dinners in Carole’s garden. Then in 1991 after a stay at the Hotel La Mirande in Avignon, he asked me to renovate the property he had just bought at 5 rue Bonaparte. It would be my first major project and the start of an exhilarating journey. What was once a beautiful apartment had been completely spoiled by an obsession with modernisation. The interior décor had been ruined, there were bare concrete walls..., but it still had a strong air of the Ancien Régime and a kind of buried nostalgia for the gentle pleasures of life. Restoring its soul meant undertaking some major structural works, and Pierre listened to my arguments, accepted my ideas and decided to trust me. We lowered the ground floor significantly to increase the ceiling height, and did the same with the garden level. The room layout was entirely changed and we even dug out cellars under the main courtyard. It was a Herculean task that lasted a year! While Louis Benech and Pascal Cribier built the new gardens, which went from looking like a training ground to becoming this delightful, other-worldly place, I was working with some of the best artisans around to create the wainscoting and stucco reliefs, lay the parquet and hang the mercury glass mirrors. It was such a joy to be their client! I could dream big, ask for the moon and often get it, I could change my mind, sleep on it, start over... It takes know-how to be a client, and Pierre was a professional at it. He was perfect. Punctual, demanding, difficult but generous, open to views that differed from his own and respectful of advice, even from a fledgling architect like myself who was always convinced he was right, even then! Ever hopeful, I hunted high and low and with some success. There were the four overdoor panels by Huet for the drawing room, and the two pairs of embroidered curtains discovered at Axel. At Vincent Guerre, I found a collection of signed and dated 18th century Persian print fabric for the bedroom walls and window casement, and at Vervoordt, the extraordinary 17th century painted cei