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13 Le quintette rouge, 1948 Signed lower left 'Raoul Dufy' Oil on canvas 13 x 16 1/8 in, 33 x 41 cm Provenance Galerie Louis Carré, Paris Private collection (acquired from the above in 1953, and thence by decent) Private collection (acquired Sotheby's, New York, Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture, Part II (sale 6096), 14 November 1990, lot 442) Private collection Literature Paris, M. Laffaille & F. Guillon-Laffaille, Raoul Dufy, Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint, Supplément, 1985, p.145, no.2011 (illus.) Music was very important to Dufy, who grew up in a family of musicians and trained as an amateur violinist. Dufy used the orchestra as a subject from as early as 1902 and returned to it whilst living in Nice during the Second World War. Dufy's decorative line and arrangement of colour essentially recreated the dancing melody of a score of music and the cadences of tone, which cellist Pablo Casals described: 'I cannot tell what piece your orchestra is playing, but I know which key it is written in'. Dufy was also crucially drawn to the spectacle of performance and the relationship between the musicians and audience. The exuberant Le quintette rouge forms part of a series of studies made during the 1940s of the Société du Conservatoire des Concerts Colonne. Using a daring red, Dufy conveys the resonance of the melody and swell of sound created by the quintet. The dominance of red is also emblematic of Dufy's experimentation with tonal painting during this late period, when one colour dominates to impress an emotional intensity. Other examples from this series are defined by violet, blue or orange tones which evoke contrasting timbres of the music that fill the concert hall. However, unlike Dufy's larger orchestral compositions, Le quintette rouge pays close attention to the movements of each musician with each flick of the bow and pluck of string represented as well as the poise of the spellbound audience. In contrast, Terrasse et kiosque à musique is an example of one of the earliest of these music subjects, made shortly after Dufy's arrival in Nice following the Occupation of Paris.