Label:
In this work Dufy depicts the view from the closed window of his studio in the Hôtel Suisse, which looked out over the Promenade des Anglais, the celebrated shoreline road fringed with palm trees that hugs the curved Bay of Angels in downtown Nice. The work owes an equal debt to Henri Matisse's earlier hotel window paintings and to Piet Mondrian's severely geometric abstractions. The rectilinear windowpanes, placed parallel to the picture plane, serve as a framing device for the hillside city, which Dufy has rendered in saturated colors dominated by the vibrant blue sea and sky.

Provenance

With Bignou Gallery, New York, 1938 (photo no. 2844) [1]; sold to Samuel S. White, 3rd (1876-1952), Ardmore, PA, October 3, 1940 [2]; bequest of Vera White (Mrs. Samuel S. White, 3rd) to PMA, 1967. 1. The painting was included in the 1938 Bignou Gallery, New York, exhibition "Two Colorists, Renoir and Raoul Dufy." It is also included in the Bignou annotated photo album (Frick Art Reference Library, vol. "Dufy II"). 2. Copy of dated receipt from Bignou Gallery to White in curatorial file.