Kees Van Dongen
Woman with a Cigarettecirca 1906-1908

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Oil painting portrait, head and shoulders of a pale-skinned figure with golden hair, heavy-lidded red-painted eyes, a cigarette at the lips, and a crimson peony tucked into the hair

Artist or Maker: Kees Van Dongen
Netherlands, Rotterdam, 1877-1968
Title: Woman with a Cigarette
Culture: Dutch
Date Made: circa 1906-1908
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Canvas: 25 5/8 × 19 3/4 in. (65.09 × 50.17 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of A. Jerrold Perenchio
Accession Number: M.2025.64.32
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: Settling permanently in Paris by 1900, Dutch artist Kees van Dongen quickly established himself in the iconoclastic artist community of Montmartre. Situated on a hill north of the city’s center, the neighborhood was home to circuses, cabarets, and dance halls that were popular working-class destinations. Fascinated with the garish performative style of his urban milieu, Van Dongen was aligned with both the French Fauves and the Dresden-based Die Brücke, reflected in the amplified unnatural palette and aggressive frontal compositions of his paintings. Here, the sitter’s bleary, bloodshot eyes and dangling cigarette suggest a long stretch without sleep. Her brilliant yellow hair, magenta flower, emerald green ribbon, and sparkling earring glow against her burned-out features, which are delineated with a few lines and unmodeled color. She is a woman both world-weary and tarted-up—a veritable emblem of Montmartre.

The heart-shaped necklace resting on her pale white flesh has given the painting a nickname—“La Cepue.” СЕРЦЕ is written in Cyrillic in paint on the stretcher and again in graphite on the reverse of the canvas, along with the pronunciation “Sertze.” The word means “heart” in Russian, and the language may hold a key to the provenance and/or exhibition history of the painting that has yet to be uncovered.

2024
Provenance: [Galerie de l’Art Moderne, Paris, sold 13 May 1955 to]; M. Henri Belien, Brussels, Belgium, by descent (sale, New York, Christie’s, 9 November 1994, lot 28, bought-in), and (sale, London, Phillips, 23 June 1997, lot 23, bought-in).(1) “Important European Collection” (sale, New York, Sotheby’s, 7 November 2007, lot 36, to);(2) A. J. Perenchio (1930–2017), Los Angeles, gifted 2025 to; Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Footnotes
(1) Dates confirmed by Wildenstein & Co., who are currently preparing the catalogue raisonné for van Dongen under the authorship of Jacques Chalom des Cordes (email from Christine Tolo to Leah Lehmbeck, 20 October 2015). Belien owned two paintings by Kees van Dongen in this collection (see also Dolly, the Painter’s Daughter, cat. 16).
(2) According to the Sotheby’s sale catalogue, the current owners acquired the painting in 1997.
Selected Bibliography: Lehmbeck, Leah, ed. Impressionist and Modern Art: The A. Jerrold Perenchio Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2016.
Copyright: © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris, photo © Fredrik Nilsen

Kees Van Dongen
Woman with a Cigarettecirca 1906-1908

On view:

Geffen Galleries

Artist or Maker: Kees Van Dongen
Netherlands, Rotterdam, 1877-1968
Title: Woman with a Cigarette
Culture: Dutch
Date Made: circa 1906-1908
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Canvas: 25 5/8 × 19 3/4 in. (65.09 × 50.17 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of A. Jerrold Perenchio
Accession Number: M.2025.64.32
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: Settling permanently in Paris by 1900, Dutch artist Kees van Dongen quickly established himself in the iconoclastic artist community of Montmartre. Situated on a hill north of the city’s center, the neighborhood was home to circuses, cabarets, and dance halls that were popular working-class destinations. Fascinated with the garish performative style of his urban milieu, Van Dongen was aligned with both the French Fauves and the Dresden-based Die Brücke, reflected in the amplified unnatural palette and aggressive frontal compositions of his paintings. Here, the sitter’s bleary, bloodshot eyes and dangling cigarette suggest a long stretch without sleep. Her brilliant yellow hair, magenta flower, emerald green ribbon, and sparkling earring glow against her burned-out features, which are delineated with a few lines and unmodeled color. She is a woman both world-weary and tarted-up—a veritable emblem of Montmartre.

The heart-shaped necklace resting on her pale white flesh has given the painting a nickname—“La Cepue.” СЕРЦЕ is written in Cyrillic in paint on the stretcher and again in graphite on the reverse of the canvas, along with the pronunciation “Sertze.” The word means “heart” in Russian, and the language may hold a key to the provenance and/or exhibition history of the painting that has yet to be uncovered.

2024
Provenance: [Galerie de l’Art Moderne, Paris, sold 13 May 1955 to]; M. Henri Belien, Brussels, Belgium, by descent (sale, New York, Christie’s, 9 November 1994, lot 28, bought-in), and (sale, London, Phillips, 23 June 1997, lot 23, bought-in).(1) “Important European Collection” (sale, New York, Sotheby’s, 7 November 2007, lot 36, to);(2) A. J. Perenchio (1930–2017), Los Angeles, gifted 2025 to; Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Footnotes
(1) Dates confirmed by Wildenstein & Co., who are currently preparing the catalogue raisonné for van Dongen under the authorship of Jacques Chalom des Cordes (email from Christine Tolo to Leah Lehmbeck, 20 October 2015). Belien owned two paintings by Kees van Dongen in this collection (see also Dolly, the Painter’s Daughter, cat. 16).
(2) According to the Sotheby’s sale catalogue, the current owners acquired the painting in 1997.
Selected Bibliography: Lehmbeck, Leah, ed. Impressionist and Modern Art: The A. Jerrold Perenchio Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2016.