“bacchantes” Attributed To Ker Xavier Roussel

Large oil on canvas, unsigned, depicting a set of bacchantes and dryads dancing in a clearing resuming a mythological scene (note the columns with Corinthian capitals and the amphora) in an imaginary and chimerical world. Painting in very good condition, a piece of reinforcement on the back of the canvas, on its original frame on which we can read an old inscription "Att Ker Roussel" ("Att." for "Attributed"). Dimensions of the painting 43.5x84 cm Wooden frame and gilded stucco, 64x104 cm Ker-Xavier Roussel (real name François Xavier Roussel) is a French painter, born December 10, 1867 in Lorry-lès-Metz (Moselle) and died June 6, 1944 at L'Étang-la-Ville (Yvelines). Linked from adolescence to Edouard Vuillard, who would become his brother-in-law, Ker Xavier Roussel first attended the Julian Academy. There he met Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Ranson, Sérusier. The latter is working to spread the theories of Gauguin on synthetism, advocating the collected and identified forms, which will inspire the Nabis movement. From 1891 to 1894, Ker Xavier Roussel joined the Nabis group and took part in their demonstrations. In 1897 he was supported by Vollard. Around 1900 his dealer will be Jos Hessel at the Galerie Bernheim. From 1901, Ker Xavier Roussel exhibited mythological scenes populated by nymphs and fauns. He discovers the south in 1905. His palette clears up. The touch is lively, the colors warm. He paints a happy universe detached from reality, animated by a mythology of fantasy, a pantheistic vision of an imaginary, everyday and chimerical world at the same time. Satyrs and driads dance in a setting often inspired by the Côte d'Azur when it is not clearings in the inner suburbs of Paris. Roussel executes many decorations of public monuments, such as the Palais de Chaillot or the Comédie des Champs-Elysées.