JACQUES-LAURENT AGASSE (Geneva 1767-1849 London) The... Lot 3229

JACQUES-LAURENT AGASSE (Geneva 1767-1849 London) The Secret. 1833. Oil on canvas. Monogrammed lower left: JLA. 35.7 × 30.5 cm. Provenance: - Gustave Brocher Collection, Geneva. - Marie Brocher Collection, Geneva, 1930-1935. - Charles Chenevière Collection, Geneva. - Auction Sotheby's, London, 14.4.1989, lot 37. - Swiss private property. Exhibitions: - Geneva 1930, Exposition d'oeuvres du peintre genevois Jacques-Laurent Agasse appartenant à des collections privées, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, February-March 1930, no. 8. - Geneva 1942, Genève à travers les âges, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, 1942, no. 6. - Geneva 1988, Jaques-Laurent Agasse (1767-1849) ou la séduction de l'Angleterre, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, 10.11.1988-22.1.1989, no. 67 (label on verso). - London 1989, Agasse, Tate Gallery, 15.2.-2.4.1989 (label on verso). Literature: - Manuscript Record Book, "July 1833 Ditto 12 by 14" (manuscript, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva). - Daniel Baud-Bovy and Fred. Boissonnas: Peintres Genevois du XVIIIe et du XIXe siècle, 1766-1849, Geneva 1904, p. 124, fig. 89. - C. F. Hardy: J. L. Agasse, his life, his work, 1905, pp. 191-92. - Promenade à l'Exposition du Centenaire 1814-1914, Geneva 1914, p. 25. - A. Cartier: Coup d'oeil sur les Arts à Geneve de la fin du XVIIe siècle à l'époque de la Restauration, in: Nos Anciens et leurs oeuvres, 1917, p. 47. - C. F. Hardy: La vie et l'oeuvre de Jacques-Laurent Agasse, in: Pages d'art, April 1921, pp. 101-107, (with illus). - Louis Gielly: Musée de Genève, l'exposition Jacques-Laurent Agasse, in: L'Art en Suisse, March 1930, p. 71 (with ill.). - Louis Gielly: L'école genevoise de peinture, Geneva 1935, p. 221. - U. Thieme and F. Becker: Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, Leipzig 1985, vol. I, p. 498. - Renée Loche and Colston Sanger, in: Jacques-Laurent Agasse (1767-1849) ou la séduction de l'Angleterre, exh.Cat., London and Geneva 1988/89, p. 172, cat. no. 67, (with illus.). Agasse moved from Geneva to London in 1800 and lived in various places before settling at No. 4 Newman Street in 1810, where he would reside for the next twenty-five years. In the early 19th century, Newman Street and the area north of Oxford Street were a center of the arts and home to numerous painters, sculptors, and engravers. Agasse befriended the family of his landlord, George Booth, and developed a particularly close relationship with the Booth children, whom he sketched and painted several times over the years. This charming painting features his two models, Georgina Booth and her younger brother George. According to the artist's Manuscript Record Book, he painted this subject twice in July 1833: a larger version labeled "July 1833 The Secret half length 3/4 of two children" and the present work "July 1833 Ditto 12 by 14". The larger version remained in the Booth family and was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1845 as No. 19, the last of his works to be shown publicly. C. F. Hardy (see Literature, p. 191) considers another painting, listed in the Manuscript Record Book as "September 1832 two children in the same canvas," to be a study of "The Secret."