Cleveland Museum of Art

Madame Case

Eugène Carrière

Date

after September 1900, probably summer 1901

Medium

oil on fabric

Culture

France, late 19th-early 20th Century

Department

Modern European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

This painting may depict the wife of the artist's close friend, writer Jules Case. In a letter written after her death, Case asked the artist to paint her portrait from an enlarged photograph. "My dear friend," Case wrote, "would you preserve the only face which, from now on, can bring me some little joy, if one can use this word for a sentiment mixed with so much suffering." Carrière emphasized the poetic mood by placing the shadowy figure in a vague, dreamlike space. Known for his evocative paintings of women and children, Eugène Carrière was loosely associated with the French Symbolist movement, which aimed at expressing inner, spiritual life and emotions rather than the outward appearance of physical reality. The painting evokes an illusory, dreamy quality that may reflect the fact that Carrière never met his model.

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