MEMORIAS | Christa Zaat

Christa Zaat



Louise Abbéma (French painter) 1858 - 1927
An Elegant Woman, said to be Sarah Bernhardt, on a Winter's Walk, s.d.
signed Louise Abbema (lower right)
oil on canvas
16 1/4 x 12 1/4 in. (41.2 x 31.1 cm.)
private collection

Catalogue Note
Among the many artists who captured the celebrated actress Sarah Bernhardt's distinctive beauty was one of her closet friends Louise Abbéma. Abbéma submitted her Portrait de Sarah Bernhardt to the Paris Salon of 1876 and painted her frequently in the following years (many works serving a promotional purpose for the actress). As suggested by an old inscription and descriptive text on the back of the present work, the woman wrapped in fur against the cold may be Bernhardt walking along New York's Hudson River cliffs. In 1880 Bernhardt launched an American tour, her ship arriving at the half-frozen Hudson on October 27; by the time of her last performance on December 4 she had captivated theatergoers. Documenting this trip, Abbéma submitted a drawing of Bernhardt being questioned by a "lady reporter" in New York for the "The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt" published in The Strand in 1904 (Sarah Bernhardt and her Times, exh. cat., Wildenstein, New York, pp. 105-9).