Norbert GoeneutteFrench, 1854–1894Femme vue de face
Can I see it?
Not on view at present
Where is “Femme vue de face” now? Collection: Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.
Minneapolis, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the work
Long before he made this moody portrait, Norbert Goeneutte posed as the pipe-smoking bon vivant in Pierre-Auguste Renoir's famous Moulin de la Galette (1876). Though a friend of the Impressionists, Goeneutte tended toward Realism, painting scenes of Parisian street life and the urban poor.
Read on
This image—direct, monumental, mysterious—is one of the most appealing Goeneutte ever produced. Although the lithograph is remarkably faithful to the preparatory drawing, the differences are telling. The drawing was made in 1891, the year the artist moved to Auvers-sur-Oise for treatment (by one account, for tuberculosis). The lithograph was published the year he died. Both images have the same passive, unflinching stare and sense of impenetrability, as if the figure were walled off behind her garments. In the drawing, Goeneutte used two pieces of paper pasted together to accommodate her strikingly elongated proportions. In the lithograph, her costume has become barely discernible from the background, and her face has taken on a soft, mystical radiance. She emerges from the weighty darkness with greater serenity now, her face almost floating free.
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Details
- Accession number
- 2011.58.2
In the catalog
Sources
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Image: Minneapolis Institute of Art — public domain
