Etude d'une femme (Mme Valtat)

Red conté crayon on paper, circa 1905. Dimensions: 24.7 x 31.7 cm (9¾x12½ in). Provenance: Estate of the artist, Paris, with the black ink stamp (Lugt 1771bis, lower left recto); Galerie J. Le Chapelin, Paris, with the label; private collection, New York. The sitter is the artist’s wife, née Suzanne Noel (1879-1967). They married in Versailles in 1900, and throughout his life Suzanne was Valtat’s favourite model. She also posed for an oil portrait by the artist’s friend, Pierre-Auguste Renoir from 1903,