Ker Xavier ROUSSEL (1867-1944) Lot n° 9

The Good Samaritan, 1897 Pastel and charcoal on cardboard Signed and dated "[18]97" lower right Pastel and black chalk on cardboard, signed and dated "[18]97" lower right 56 x 78 cm - 22 x 30 3/4 in. Mathias Chivot, Nicolas Langlois de Bazillac and Jacques Roussel have confirmed the authenticity of this work, which will be included in the Ker Xavier Roussel catalogue raisonné they are currently working on PROVENANCE London, Wolseley Fine Arts Sale, Christie's South Kensington, London, 21 October 2004, lot 341 Sale, Tajan, Espace Tajan, 19 May 2009, lot 310 Private collection, France EXHIBITION Ker Xavier Roussel (1867-1944), Reflections on a Changing World, Paintings, Pastels, Drawings and Prints, Wolseley Fine Arts, London, 9 June-24 July 1999, no. 16 RELATED WORK Ker Xavier Roussel, Le bon Samaritain, pastel on paper, 18 x 23 cm, in sale, Treasures from the Vollard Safe, Sotheby's Paris, 29 June 2010, lot 56 "Roussel's lightest pastels are the most powerful. He has laid down the pollen of colours, as he looks, as he speaks. He has laid down lights, such as essential words, and the bare paper, reacting, has said the others. Thus, in conversation, the silences add, to the delicate expressions, those which are too delicate to be formulated. However, the first time we saw works that left clear spaces between lines and spots of colour that uncovered the subjects, we said that they were unfinished paintings and we said of their authors that they were satisfied with little. It is as if one were to say that a poet is content with little because he groups a few lines between large margins instead of writing an epic. Yet he does not have the same goal. The moment an expression is achieved, the work is finished. When a work is final with a hundred touches of color, if you add a thousand more, it doesn't mean that you have gone further; it means that you have annihilated a previous work to substitute another one constituted quite differently." Lucie Cousturier, K.-X. Roussel, Bernheim- Jeune, Paris : 1929, p. 34