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Lot description
Vittorio Matteo Corcos, Italian 1859-1933- Portrait of Vivien Chartres as a girl, standing full-length, wearing a blue dress and holding her violin; oil on canvas, with curved upper edge, signed, dedicated and dated 'Alle Carissima Vivien / V. Corcos / Firenze 1907' (lower right), inscribed and dated '·VIVIEN·CHARTRES· / ·A·D·MCMVII·' (upper right), 170.4 x 90 cm. Note: Corcos studied under Enrico Pollastrini (1817-1876) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, before travelling to Naples to work with Domenico Morelli (1823-1901). He later went to Paris, where he met Léon Bonnat (1833-1922) and Guiseppe de Nittis (1846-1884), whose influence can be seen in the elaborate, richly-detailed portraits of elegant sitters for which Corcos was best-known. These include, for example, Corcos's portrait of 'Paolina Clelia Silvia Bondi', which sold at Pandolfini Casa d'Aste, Florence, on 23 May 2023, lot 102 (€264,600), and his portrait of the 'Contessa Nerina Pisani Volpi di Misurata' which sold at Hampel, Munich, on 23 March 2012, lot 561 (€200,000 hammer). Vivien Chartres (1893-1941) was a British violinist and child prodigy, who travelled to Prague to study under Otakar Ševčík (1852-1934) at the age of ten, and performed widely throughout her youth, for audiences including Queen Margherita (1851-1926) and Edward VII (1841-1910). The relationship between Chartres and her mother, the writer Annie Vivanti (1866-1942), undoubtedly inspired the latter's novel 'The Devourers' (1910).