Albert Edelfelt was one of Finland's leading artists already in his time and he made an admirable career both at home and internationally. His repertoire included everything from academic history painting to airy landscape and outdoor paintings with motifs from both the Finnish countryside and from city life in Paris. But above all, Edelfelt had a masterful way of portraying people, and with particular delight he seems to have depicted beautiful and elegant women. Several society ladies had their portraits of him commissioned, but he also had several professional favorite models that he repeatedly painted in various roles and situations. Many of the models are known by name through his correspondence, but far from all.
Between 1874 and 1905, Edelfelt lived for short and long periods in Paris, where he had his studio at 81, Boulevard Montparnasse. Several of the depictions of women he made there give the impression of being genre images rather than model studies or outright portraits. Works with cute Parisians were sought after in France and viable in the private art market. Many of the models are strikingly similar to each other and all represented the beauty ideals of the time.
In this work the model is a very young girl wearing an 18th century costume. Most of her light, curly hair is hidden behind a small white lace hat and around her neck she wears a lace fringe, a so-called fichu. The silky dress with small puff sleeves is very deeply cut and reveals a significant part of the girl's well - shaped breasts. The face with the finely cut features and hazel eyes is slightly turned to the side, whereupon the model avoids meeting our gaze. She gives a tight and innocent impression, while she is very seductive with her generous cleavage and her folded fan, which she so coquettishly holds against her shoulder. Despite the 18th century equipment, Young Lady with a Fan perfectly represents the late 19th century salon culture with its fad for cool women in beautiful and lavish costumes. The girl's light complexion and pale attire further emphasize her healthy beauty.
As early as the end of the 1870s, Albert Edelfelt had taken an interest in historical genre motifs. In 1879, during a visit to Haga outside Stockholm, he made a landscape study which later (1884) resulted in the oil painting Bellman playing lute for Gustav III and G. M. Armfelt at Haga. In the spring of 1884, he also made some pastels with an 18th century connection, including Model study, Laughing model in an 18th century hat and two versions of Young lady with fan: one signed and one unsigned. The first three paintings were already documented in the 1940s by the museum owner and Edelfelt connoisseur Bertel Hintze. The current, unsigned pastel Young Lady with Fan was long unknown to the expert.
The painting probably came to Sweden as early as the beginning of the 20th century through Edelfelt's widow, Ellan de la Chapelle, who in 1908 remarried a brother to the painting's first known owner. By inheritance, it then ended up in a guest room at a Swedish castle. It was examined professionally for the first time in the autumn of 2015, when it was thoroughly examined through Åmell's mediation at the Sinebrychoff Art Museum in Helsinki by the noble field researcher Marina Catani and the museum curator Maija Santala. The result of the study, which was based on a comparative analysis with the signed version of the motif and was performed with a stereomicroscope, among other things, was that the painting was registered as a work done by Albert Edelfelt as a first version of the motif Young lady with fan. Åmells is very happy to have been able to contribute to this exquisite, previously unknown work by Edelfelt now being made available to the public. Catani's expert opinion and statement of provenance in its entirety accompany the pastel upon acquisition.
Provenance
Hanna von Born, Ånga Estate, Nyköping;
through inheritance to latest private owners.
Literature
Compare Bertel Hintze, Albert Edelfelt - Part I, Helsinki 1942, Young lady with fan, 60 x 48 cm, cataloged as no. 270, p. 60, and depicted in black and white on the same page. That version is also depicted in black and white in Christian Faerber (red), Art in Swedish homes, Gothenburg 1943, under collection 374, belonging to Dir. Carl August Wicander, Stockholm.

Ung dam med solfjäder (I), 62 x 46,5 cm. // Ung dam med solfjäder (II), 60 x 48 cm, signed Edelfelt.