Lot 192: ROMAINE BROOKS

Portrait de la Contesse Anna de Noailles signed Romaine, l.l. - - oil on canvas 13 3/4 x 10 3/4 in. (35 x 27.3 cm.) PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist Natalie Clifford Barney Private collection, Switzerland LITERATURE Musee Sainte-Croix, Romaine Brooks (1874-1970), Poitiers, 1987, p. 107, no. 32, illus. as a lost painting Brooks painted this portrait of the poetess Countess Anna de Noailles (1876-1933) circa 1908, when the two may have met through the salon of the Princesse de Polignac. Both women were renowned in Parisian Belle Epoque circles, and numbered among their friends such literary luminaries as Jean Cocteau, Robert de Montesquiou and Gabriele d'Annunzio. Brooks' moody and thoughtful portrayal elicited a humorous protest from the sitter, who would have preferred to be remembered by posterity as "smiling" and "divine". The painting may have held a personal meaning for Brooks, as it remained in her own personal collection and that of her close friend, Natalie Barney.