Suzanne Fabry

Art market, Antwerp;

Where acquired by the present owner, in 2003.

Daughter of the Symbolist painter Emile Fabry, her first teacher, Suzanne Fabry (1904–1985) was a twentieth century Belgian artist who made her name in the graphic and decorative arts. A pupil at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels from 1923 to 1928, she grew up among her father’s friends, Jean Delville, Constant Montald, Fernand Khnopff and Victor Horta. She started exhibiting at the Salons in 1930.

Although she did not claim to be a Symbolist, her works are nevertheless distinctive for their lyrical and a dreamlike quality, going beyond a simple depiction of actuality. She addressed universal and allegorical themes which invite contemplation, appearing to seek harmony, beauty and spirituality while retaining a modern sensibility. These themes can be found in Nymphs Hunting a Stag, which depicts, in a soft golden light, three female nudes running at the edge of a wood, following a bounding stag and with two greyhounds held on leashes.

A gouache entitled Study for a Hunt of Diana is known for this painting (Aguttes, Paris, 28 November 2024, lot 118). It illustrates the evolution of the artist’s creative process. In the final work, she altered her palette, opting for warmer tones, moved the forest in the background from the left to the right, added a pond in the lower left corner, and gave greater importance to the stag in the foreground.

As in her Triple Self-portrait of 1934 (Sotheby’s Paris, 22 March 2023, lot 46), Suzanne Fabry pays particular attention to the representation of her figures, which are idealized in the academic tradition of female beauty. A comparison with other compositions, such as her Self-portrait of 1932 (Sotheby’s, London, 23 March 2022, lot 28) and Female Nudes by the Sea (1943, Replica Shoes ’s New York, 30 January 2023, lot 722), suggests that all these women resemble her. As with Khnopff – especially in Memories (1889, Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, inv. 3528) – this is a multiplication of the same figure: the artist seems to be her own muse.

Choosing to depict three women and three animals could allude to a tension between humanity and bestiality, but also between savage nature and freedom, symbolized by the stag, and human mastery and discipline, embodied by the greyhounds held on a leash. As far as the subject is concerned, the myth of Diana and Actaeon could be suggested by the forest setting, the edge of a pool visible in the lower left corner of the composition, the fleeing stag, the hunting dogs and the exclusively female human figures.