Portrait of Yvonne Lerolle in three views

While frequenting the circle of the painter, patron and music publisher Henry Lerolle in the early 1890s, Maurice Denis became friendly with one of his daughters, Yvonne. In 1893 he produced an ex-libris for her, and, more importantly, this triple portrait in 1897, a magnificent reminder of their relationship: behind the main, central portrait, two other images of Yvonne appear in the verdant landscape, with the upper part framed by the dark foliage of two trees.

In its iconographic layout, this triple portrait alludes to the Young Girls by the Sea by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, a painting about which Gustave Kahn wrote: “cannot one see, in these three women who are all similar but nonetheless have different attitudes, the same woman under three physical aspects…the same one at three moments, three acts of her life?” (La Revue ind�pendante, January 1888).

Yvonne Lerolle (born 1877) was the daughter of Henry Lerolle (1848-1929), a French painter, art collector and patron. Debussy dedicated several works for piano to Yvonne, and Renoir painted a picture depicting Yvonne and her sister at the piano.