Félix VALLOTTON (1865 - 1925) Portrait of Gerardo Tronia in profile Graphite. Unsigned. (Slight discoloration along the left edge). 21 x 17 cm Provenance: - Gabrielle Vallotton, née Bernheim, wife of Félix Vallotton. - Madeleine Lecomte du Noüy, née Rodrigues-Henriques, daughter of Gabrielle Vallotton and daughter-in-law of Félix Vallotton. By descent. - Isabelle Lecasble, née Lecomte du Noüy, daughter of Madeleine Lecomte du Noüy (her stamp on the back). By descent. We recognize the model, named Gerardo Tronia, who posed for Vallotton in 1907 (CR 621 and 623) and 1912 (CR 947 and 948). We would like to thank Mrs. Katia Poletti, curator of the Félix Vallotton Foundation, for the information she provided. The drawings we are presenting come from the collection of Isabelle Lecomte du Noüy and were inherited from her grandmother, Gabrielle Bernheim. Her grandmother, Gabrielle Bernheim, had married the painter Félix Vallotton, a major figure in the Nabis group and a close associate of Édouard Vuillard. The set includes numerous nude studies, as well as several preparatory sheets for painted works. These include a study for Femme nue de dos blonde (1907), a study for Femme assise de dos (1915) in the Kunstmuseum Luzern, and a study for the painting Vue d'Avignon (1920). These sheets reveal Vallotton's creative process: the artist explores the attitudes of the figures, sets up the composition and balance of forms, while inscribing color annotations directly on the paper to guide the elaboration of the painting. This group of works, which remained in a family closely linked to Nabism and its representatives, is today a particularly precious testimony. To identify its provenance, a collection stamp bearing Isabelle Lecomte du Noüy's initials has been affixed to the reverse of each drawing.