Henry de GROUX (1866-1930)Le Christ aux Outrages,... Lot 27

Henry de GROUX (1866-1930)Le Christ aux Outrages, 1893Oil on canvas. Signed, dated, inscribed lower right. (Small restorations). 71 x 85 cmProvenance : Collection Jean Paulhan. By descent. Our painting is a version of the Symbolist painter's masterpiece, Christ of Outrage, executed in 1889. It was presented for the first time at the Triennial Salon in Brussels in 1891, where it made a resounding entry into the Belgian artistic landscape of the time, at the age of only twenty-three. His dark, tormented and violent world appeals to the visitors of the Salon, who only talk about this monumental work and this provocative and ambitious young artist. This painting is today kept in the Palais du Roure in Avignon. Another version of the painting, executed around 1925, in a more modest format, is kept at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium (Inv. 9207). This painting from the collection of the critic and writer Jean Paulhan recalls the link between the two men. It was in the early 1890s that the painter and the man of letters met, on the occasion of the exhibition of his painting Le Christ aux Outrages at Alphonse Osbert's home. From 1892 onwards, strong links were forged between Henry de Groux and important literary figures of the time such as Léon Bloy, who would become his great friend, but also Émile Zola, Stéphane Mallarmé, Joris-Karl Huysmans and André Gide. The mutual respect that Paulhan and de Groux had for each other will be concretized by the realization of a portrait of the writer by his friend in 1914; this portrait depicting him in zouave and life-size has now disappeared.