Long-Lost Balthus Painting Found in Switzerland
Billie
regarded as one of the finest realists of the 20th century, has been uncovered
in a private collection in Switzerland, a Swiss gallery said Tuesday.
The 1930 painting, "Joueuse de Diabolo," depicts a girl in a dance-like pose
playing a game. Balthus gave it to his friend Emo Bardeleben who left
Switzerland for New York in 1932.
"A major work by Balthus, given up for lost, has reappeared. Such a discovery
is an event," the Musee Jenisch in the resort town of Vevey said in a
statement.
Works by Balthus, who died last year at the age of 92, are worth millions of
dollars, but rarely come up at auction.
"Without any doubt it is absolutely a Balthus painting. He signed and dated it
on the back. Six preliminary drawings exist and it is also documented in his
letters to his first wife, Antoinette de Watteville," museum curator Laurence
Rippstein told Reuters.
The art world had considered the work to be lost.
Balthus, born Count Balthazar Klossowski de Rola to a Polish family living in
Paris, was a self-taught painter. He is best known for his provocative, some
said pornographic, paintings of young women.
The owner, who wishes to remain anonymous, showed the oil painting recently to
the museum's experts, who have included it in a coming exhibition of 107
paintings and watercolors by Balthus.
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