Signed, titled and dated on the reverse
This painting is an example of Greaves's appreciation of the classical as embodied in his work from the late twentieth century and early twentieth-first century. The geometric compositional elements within the painting are reflective of both the inherent importance of geometry in antiquity and the formal qualities of a Japanese woodcut, as seen in Greaves's works from the end of the twentieth century. These works are an amalgamation of form and colour, working together to create an aesthetically striking image. This approach of combining the representational and the abstract stems from the initiation of this style in Greaves's work in the late 1970s.
The title and the picture within the painting also make a direct allusion to Jacques-Louis David's painting, Madame Récamier (1800), which is housed in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. David's painting is an unfinished portrait of Madame de Récamier, a French hostess whose salon attracted the most high profile literary and political figures of nineteenth century Paris. The painting portrays her in classical attire and reclined on a classical piece of furniture, a long backless seat with a head and foot rest. Following her frequent use of this furniture during her social engagements, and the production of this painting, the piece of furniture was eventually given her name. René Magritte also made a Surrealist and morose interpretation of David's work in his painting, Perspective: Madame Récamier by David (1951).
The figure in the picture in Greave's painting shares exactly the same pose and classically aligned contours as David's painting, both reminiscent of the ordered yet graceful forms of antiquity. This line is pursued through the rest of Greaves's painting and is echoed in a more rigid form through the vertical and horizontal lines. This particular feature makes use of one of Greaves's develops as introduced in 1997 where a horizontal bar runs across the bottom of the canvas, giving Greaves a platform on which to place objects without having to depict a table. This also works to give complete focus to each object, individually objectifying them.
Provenance
Private Collection, London
History
Derrick Greaves, Paintings and Drawings 1952 - 2002, James Hyman Gallery, 28 January - 4 March 2005
Literature
Derrick Greaves: Paintings and Drawings 1952 - 2002, James Hyman Gallery, London, 2003, (cat. 24), illustrated p.19.
James Hyman, Derrick Greaves: From Kitchen Sink to ShangrI-La, Lund Humphries, London, 2007, illustrated p.148.