This intimate scene depicts Luce’s close friend and fellow painter Gustave Perrot “getting up” and dressing as morning light streams through a garret window. Luce enlivened the traditional subject of an artist in his humble living quarters with a vivid palette of red, orange, yellow, and blue, applied in stippled brushstrokes, in keeping with the newly minted technique of Pointillism. Little is known about Perrot, aside from the fact that he died young. In 1892, his brief career was remembered in a fifteen-work tribute held at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Morning, Interior
Artist:Maximilien Luce (French, Paris 1858–1941 Paris)
Date:1890
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:25 1/2 x 31 7/8 in. (64.8 x 81 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Bequest of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot (1876-1967), 1967
Object Number:67.187.80
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): Luce 90
?[Julien (père) Tanguy, Paris, until d. 1894]; his widow, Paris (1894; her sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 2, 1894, not in catalogue, to Vollard); [Ambroise Vollard, Paris, from 1894]; [Jacques Rodrigues-Henriques, Paris, until at least 1929; on deposit at Durand-Ruel until January 15, 1929; deposit no. 13276]; Adelaide Milton de Groot, New York (by 1936–d. 1967; on loan to The Met, 1936–39)
Paris. Galerie Laffitte. "Tableaux de Maximilien Luce, Aquarelles de Paul Signac," November 22–December 8, 1894, no. 14 (as "Le lever, intérieur").
Coral Gables, Fla. Joe and Emily Lowe Art Gallery of the University of Miami. "Renoir to Picasso 1914," February 8–March 10, 1963, no. 78 (as "Portrait of Feuillagiste Péraut," lent by Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Neo-Impressionism: The Friends and Followers of Georges Seurat," September 14, 1991–January 12, 1992, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Neo-Impressionism: The Circle of Paul Signac," October 2–December 30, 2001, no catalogue.
Portland, Maine. Portland Museum of Art. "Neo-Impressionism: Artists on the Edge," June 27–October 20, 2002, unnumbered cat. (fig. 12).
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "The Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920," February 4–May 6, 2007, no. 112.
Berlin. Neue Nationalgalerie. "Französische Meisterwerke des 19. Jahrhunderts aus dem Metropolitan Museum of Art," June 1–October 7, 2007, unnumbered cat.
L'Annonciade, Musée de Saint-Tropez. "Maximilien Luce: Les Travaux et les Jours," July 5–October 13, 2008, unnumbered cat. (p. 78).
Brussels. ING Cultural Centre. "To the Point: Le portrait néo-impressionniste, 1886–1904," February 19–May 18, 2014, unnumbered cat. (colorpl. 27).
Indianapolis Museum of Art. "Face to Face: The Neo-Impressionist Portrait, 1886–1904," June 15–September 7, 2014, unnumbered cat. (colorpl. 27).
Vienna. Albertina. "Seurat, Signac, Van Gogh. Ways of Pointillism," September 16, 2016–January 8, 2017, no. 44.
Jean Sutter inThe Neo-Impressionists. Ed. Jean Sutter. Greenwich, Conn., 1970, p. 174, calls it "Interior: My Friend Perrot Getting Up" and states that it is the "only memory" of the Neo-Impressionist painter Gustave Perrot.
Jean Bouin-Luce and Denise Bazetoux. Maximilien Luce: Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint. Paris, 1986, vol. 1, pp. 71, 199; vol. 2, p. 141, no. 563, ill., call it "Portrait du Feuillagiste Perrot"; list it as probably "Le Lever, Intérieur," no. 14 in Exh. Paris 1894.
Philippe Cazeau. Maximilien Luce: Époque néo-impressionniste, 1887–1903. Exh. cat., Galerie H. Odermatt—Ph. Cazeau. Paris, 1987, unpaginated, under no. 9, reproduces the study for this painting.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 502, ill.
Carrie Haslett inNeo-Impressionism: Artists on the Edge. Exh. cat., Portland Museum of Art. Portland, Maine, 2002, pp. 25, 83, fig. 12 (color).
Susan Alyson Stein inThe Masterpieces of French Painting from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1800–1920. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. New York, 2007, pp. 152, 222, no. 112, ill. (color and black and white).
Robyn Roslak. Neo-Impressionism and Anarchism in Fin-de-Siècle France: Painting, Politics and Landscape. Aldershot, England, 2007, pp. 50–51, fig. 2.5, states that Perrot was an architectural gilder; discusses this picture among several paintings of Luce's "artisan friends at home," stating that "by investing his artisans with a solemn, unsentimental and strong masculine presence..., and suggesting at the same time their aesthetic sensitivity, Luce managed to wholly affirm them at a time when commercial capitalism was diminishing the quality of their working lives and undermining their status".
Germain Talence inMaximilien Luce: Les Travaux et les Jours. Exh. cat., L'Annonciade, Musée de Saint-Tropez. Saint-Tropez, 2008, pp. 77–78, 101, ill. (color, overall and detail), comments that "la pauvreté qui suinte de la mansarde est mieux qu'un programme syndical pour rendre compréhensible la condition ouvrière".
Jane Block inThe Neo-Impressionist Portrait, 1886–1904. Exh. cat., ING Cultural Centre, Brussels. Indianapolis, 2014, pp. 37, 221, calls it a Neo-Impressionist genre portrait.
Ellen Wardwell Lee inThe Neo-Impressionist Portrait, 1886–1904. Exh. cat., ING Cultural Centre, Brussels. Indianapolis, 2014, p. 126, colorpl. 27, remarks that the sitter and the artist painted together in Arcueil and Gentilly, south of Paris, and that the sitter died a year or two later; notes the picture's combination of Seurat's painting methods with Luce's belief in the dignity of labor; states that it may have been included in the 1891 Independents exhibition in Paris as no. 799, "Intérieur".
Borys Delobbe. To the Point: Le portrait néo-impressionniste, 1886–1904. Brussels, 2014, pp. 30, 78, ill. pp. 29, 78 (color).
Heinz Widauer inWays of Pointillism: Seurat, Signac, Van Gogh. Ed. Heinz Widauer. Exh. cat., Albertina. Vienna, 2016, pp. 124, 284, no. 44, ill. p. 126 (color).
There is an oil study for this painting in a private collection (see Denise Bazetoux, Maximilien Luce: Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint, vol. 3, Paris, 2005, no. 430).
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