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37 La réception à l'amirauté, 1935 Signed lower right 'Raoul Dufy' Gouache on paper 19 7/8 x 25 7/8 in, 50.4 x 65.7 cm Provenance Private collection, France Private collection, The Netherlands Literature This work will be included in the forthcoming Catalogue raisonné des aquarelles, gouaches et pastels by Raoul Dufy being prepared by Fanny Guillon-Laffaille and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity (no. A05-1561) dated 12 May 2005 This jubilant scene of naval officers at a formal reception was the subject of several gouaches made between 1930 and 1935, and later into the 1940s. These images reimagined an earlier motif from 1925 formed when Dufy was commissioned by fashion designer Paul Poiret to create a series of frescoes at the Bianchini-Férier workshop. These paintings were designed to decorate one of three lavish barges ('Délices', 'Amour' and 'Orgues') moored beneath the Pont Alexandre III in Paris to mark the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. Poiret was convinced that these elaborate barges, filled with elegant foods, blue carnations and a perfume piano, would be the perfect showcase for his couture collection and revive his glittering pre-war reputation. The present gouache shares its title with the sixth fresco in this series, La réception à l'amirauté, which can now be found at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. This work was also amongst the illustrations used for the 1936 publication, Mon Docteur le Vin, by Gaston Derys which praised the medicinal properties of wine and were later exhibited in 1936 at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune. In this same scene, Dufy's shock of crimson, blue and yellow highlights the uniforms of the officers and fashionably-dressed women. However, in contrast to Dufy's expressive open-air scenes on the French Riviera, this interior feels comparatively claustrophobic. As the music swells and the guests gather together, Dufy amplifies this stifling sensation with planes of brilliant colour that almost consume the viewer.