Numbered Stencil By Van Dongen: "the Rimmel"

Stencil, 310 x 230 mm, Juffermans JM1.
Signed on the plate and numbered 1271 out of a print run of 1,700.

Originally commissioned for an advertisement for eye shadow and published in 1920 in the magazine *Feuillet d’art*, edited by Edmond Moussié and Michel Duffet.
In 1917, Van Dongen moved into a magnificent Parisian villa. His studio became a veritable magnet for Parisian high society: dancers, playboys, cabaret stars, and wealthy eccentrics. At the height of the Roaring Twenties, the extravagant and scandalous parties Van Dongen hosted in his studio were the talk of Paris, which not only earned him numerous portrait commissions but also helped cement his image as a sort of Dutch “Great Gatsby.” It is true that his encounter with Jasmy Jacob—whose real name was Léo Jacob—played a major role in this.
Possessing innate elegance and confident in her taste and charms, she wore even the most daring fashions with supreme distinction. With her affected pose, rather unpleasant surliness, and contemptuous gaze, she exercised absolute dominion over the painter’s life from 1916 to 1927. While as early as
1909 -1910, with his portrait of Nino the Parisian, faces had become stylized—with eyes rimmed in black kohl, their gazes wary and jaded—Jasmy further nurtured and enriched
his vision of the Parisian woman.
In fact, to add even more to the sense of unease in his portraits, the artist made a habit of lining the eyes with kohl and enlarging them further. He developed his own system of distortions and colors, steeped in a dream of the Orient.
Pierre Schneider (in his *Matisse*, Flammarion, 1984, p. 233) was right to see Van Dongen as a painter of icons, “those icons that the nature of Fauvism implied, through its hieratic style.”
“ “Through makeup, a woman escapes nature to enter the world of rituals.”
Pierre Schneider thus rediscovered certain analyses by Baudelaire praising makeup when he studied the work of Constantin Guys (The Painter of Modern Life, 1863):
“The woman (...) fulfills a kind of duty by striving to appear magical and supernatural; she must astonish and charm; as an idol, she must adorn herself to be adored
()”.
Georges Duthuit, Matisse’s son-in-law, wrote scathing remarks about Van Dongen in his book *Les Fauves* (1949), but, with the artist’s own help, he clearly recognized this deliberate element of artificiality and concluded ironically: “Exaggerate the essential!”

References:
Van Dongen, The Painter 1877–1968, Edited by the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1990
Van Dongen Rediscovered, Anita Hopmans, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1997
Van Dongen, Jean-Michel Bouhours and Nathalic Bondil, Hazon, 2008
Van Dongen: Fauvist, Anarchist, and Socialite, Anita Hopmans, Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, 2011