Offered by Poncelin de Raucourt Fine Arts
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Paintings and drawings, from 16th to 19th century
Raoul Dufy (1877–1953)
Charlot, 1920
Gouache and pencil on paper
46 × 36 cm (18? × 14? in.)
Provenance:
Collection of Julien Dutilleul (d. 1936), pupil and collaborator of Raoul Dufy.
By descent in the Dutilleul family.
Paris, Deburaux et Associés, Collection Dutilleul, Gouaches de Raoul Dufy, 15 November 2007, lot 118.
Private collection, Paris.
Related literature:
Anne Tourlonias, Raoul Dufy, p. 112.
Raoul Dufy, exhibition catalogue, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1977, cover and no. 82.
A comprehensive, fully documented expert report on this work is available upon request.
A rare and remarkable work bringing together modern painting, early cinema and the decorative arts.
Executed in 1920, this exceptional gouache by Raoul Dufy depicts one of the most recognisable figures of twentieth-century culture: Charlie Chaplin's beloved Little Tramp. The subject is particularly unusual within Dufy's oeuvre, which is best known for its luminous landscapes, regattas, racecourses and floral compositions.
In a strikingly modern composition, five representations of Charlot appear against a fantastical metropolitan backdrop of skyscrapers, street lamps and sweeping arabesques. Brilliant cobalt blue contrasts with powerful passages of black, while the rhythmic repetition of the figures creates an extraordinary sense of movement, almost evoking the successive frames of a motion picture.
The gouache belongs to a particularly important period in Dufy's career, during his celebrated collaboration with the prestigious silk manufacturer Bianchini-Férier. Its carefully orchestrated repetition of motifs and fluid decorative composition strongly suggest its conception as a design for printed fabric, reflecting the artist's pioneering experiments at the intersection of modern painting and the decorative arts.
The choice of Chaplin as a subject is especially fascinating in the context of the early 1920s. At almost precisely the same moment, Fernand Léger was exploring Chaplin's image through his celebrated Charlot cubiste. This remarkable parallel reflects the European avant-garde's fascination with cinema, movement and popular culture, and places Dufy's gouache at the heart of an extraordinary moment in the history of modern art.
The work also benefits from an exceptional provenance. It formerly belonged to Julien Dutilleul, Dufy's pupil and close collaborator at his Impasse Guelma studio in Montmartre. Preserved by his descendants for more than seventy years, the gouache only reappeared on the art market in 2007, when the Dutilleul collection was dispersed at auction in Paris.
Combining an exceptionally unusual subject, striking visual appeal and distinguished provenance, Charlot offers a rare glimpse into Dufy's extraordinary creative imagination during the Roaring Twenties. More than a delightful representation of one of cinema's greatest personalities, it is a remarkable testament to the moment when painting, cinema and design converged to redefine the visual language of modernity.
