Behind the Blue: The Outliers

After discovering a hidden painting underneath the Phillips’s The Blue Room (1901) by Pablo Picasso, conservators and curators are still researching the identity of the person in the portrait. You’ve been calling, e-mailing, tweeting, and posting your ideas about who the mystery man might be. We’re sharing information on the most popular suggestions here on the blog. Today, we focus on some of the most fun, though perhaps unlikely, suggestions.

behind the blue_favorites

Images left to right: (Top) James Lipton; Georges Braque; Louis CK (Middle) Lady Gaga; Infrared of Pablo Picasso’s The Blue Room (1901). The Phillips Collection, copyright 2008; Vincent van Gogh (Bottom) Paul Cézanne; Paul Gauguin; Luciano Pavarotti

While the suggestion may not have been a serious one, we can’t help seeing the striking resemblance between James Lipton (top left) and the portrait found behind Picasso’s The Blue Room (center) after one of our Facebook fans suggested it to us. Same goes for Louis CK; Lady Gaga, however, is a bit more of a stretch even in jest. Above are some of our favorite suggestions thus far, comedic or otherwise.

Send us your idea of who the mystery man may be with #BlueRoom or in the comments below.

Behind the Blue: Ambroise Vollard and Pío Baroja

behind the blue_ambroise baroja

Images, left to right: Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1910. Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia; Infrared of Pablo Picasso’s The Blue Room (1901). The Phillips Collection, copyright 2008; Pío Baroja, photographed by Prieto.

After discovering a hidden painting underneath the Phillips’s The Blue Room (1901) by Pablo Picasso, conservators and curators are still researching the identity of the person in the portrait. You’ve been calling, e-mailing, tweeting, and posting your ideas about who the mystery man might be. We’re sharing information on the most popular suggestions here on the blog. Today, we focus on Ambroise Vollard and Pío Baroja.

One of the most frequent suggestions continues to be Ambroise Vollard (1866–1939), a foremost European art dealer at the turn of the century. Known for his keen eye in recognizing rising stars, he amassed an impressive list of artistic connections, including Paul  Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, and Vincent van Gogh. Vollard boasted the first one-man exhibition of Picasso’s work, and in fact the artist did create a portrait or two of his dealer during his lifetime. However, this was not a terribly uncommon practice. One Phillips patron wrote in noting that the small lips, body language and type, as well as outfit seem very similar to other portraits of Vollard.

Another name that has come up several times is Pío Baroja (1872–1956). Baroja was a writer best known for his seminal work The Tree of Knowledge. While his novels never reached the height of popularity, likely due to his penchant for pessimism, he is still considered one of the leading Spanish novelists of the period. Baroja was a member of the Generation of ’98, a group that lead the way in avant-garde change in Spain and which paved the way for artists like Picasso. A Phillips follower tweeted that Picasso drew him for Arte Joven while in Madrid.

We want to hear your thoughts! Send us your suggestions for who the mystery man may be with #BlueRoom or in the comments below We’ll collect the most popular (and some of our favorites) on the blog over the next week.

Happy Birthday Honoré Daumier

Honoré Daumier was born this day, 26 February, in 1808. Here is a look at a technical study undertaken by painting conservator Elizabeth Steele in 1999 of his small oil painting on a wooden panel, The Strongman, ca. 1865.

Honoré Daumier, "The Strongman", c. 1865, oil on wood panel, 10-5/8" x 13-7/8", Acquired 1928

Honoré Daumier, The Strongman, ca. 1865. Oil on wood panel, 10 5/8 x 13 7/8 in. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC. Acquired 1928

The x-radiograph of "The Strongman" attests to Daumier's frequent custom of reworking a composition. A completely different figure wearing a striped jacket and a bicorne (two-cornered hat) lies beneath the man on the far right. In an earlier state, the curtain in the center of the painting was draped lower across the doorway. The bright white in the left half of the x-radiograph indicates the density of the paint in this area and reflects the number of times these passages were reworked. The heads of some of the figures in the background appear to have been shifted and the clown may have originally looked back towards the strongman instead of out at the viewer. By contrast, the dark torso of the strongman indicates little to no reworking of the painting's main character.

The x-radiograph of The Strongman attests to Daumier’s frequent custom of reworking a composition. A completely different figure wearing a striped jacket and a bicorne (two-cornered hat) lies beneath the man on the far right. In an earlier state, the curtain in the center of the painting was draped lower across the doorway. The bright white in the left half of the x-radiograph indicates the density of the paint in this area and reflects the number of times these passages were reworked. The heads of some of the figures in the background appear to have been shifted and the clown may have originally looked back towards the strongman instead of out at the viewer. By contrast, the dark torso of the strongman indicates little to no reworking of the painting’s main character.

The painting's strongly textured and deeply cracked surface reflects Daumier's practice of painting one layer on top of the next without allowing for the underlying paint applications to fully dry. A microscopic paint cross-section taken from the upper left reveals no less than eight distinct layers in this heavily-reworked picture. The bottom layer is the white ground (1), followed by a thin red (2), a white (3), a dark brown (4), a thin light brown (5), a thicker red (6), another dark brown (7), and finally an ochre-colored layer at the top. In addition, beeswax was discovered in some passages.  The beeswax may have served as an isolating layer between paint applications when chanbes to the composition were being made. This unorthodox technique of using a non-drying wax, a material readily available in Daumier's studio for printmaking, may also account for the wrinkled appearance of the paint film.

The painting’s strongly textured and deeply cracked surface reflects Daumier’s practice of painting one layer on top of the next without allowing for the underlying paint applications to fully dry. A microscopic paint cross-section taken from the upper left reveals no less than eight distinct layers in this heavily-reworked picture. The bottom layer is the white ground (1), followed by a thin red (2), a white (3), a dark brown (4), a thin light brown (5), a thicker red (6), another dark brown (7), and finally an ochre-colored layer at the top (8). In addition, beeswax was discovered in some passages. The beeswax may have served as an isolating layer between paint applications when changes to the composition were being made. This unorthodox technique of using a non-drying wax, a material readily available in Daumier’s studio for printmaking, may also account for the wrinkled appearance of the paint film.