Catalogue entry
“Loty in a boat and water lilies in the foreground/ the white touch and the reflection in the water, the depth of the water”. These were the notes of René Massé1 when he discovered this pastel of relatively large dimensions, with an almost square format, at the home of his friend Smit.
Lotty Urban, thirteen years old, is sleeping in a rowboat on the pond of the park of the Château de la Motte, which Smit2 had acquired two years earlier.
On this stretch of water, time seems to be suspended around the motionless boat, which is delicately restrained by a dangling branch of ivy, and on which the languid young girl is dreaming. From this peaceful atmosphere on a beautiful summer day, the painter captures this moment of idleness, unbeknownst to his model. By positioning the boat in the upper left part of the painting, Smit places himself with the spectator at a distant observation point so as not to awaken Lotty.
Without any obvious effect of perspective, Smit achieves a balanced composition with a foreground entirely filled by the pond, whose surface is skilfully animated with reflections and clusters of water lilies. The different shades of green contrast with the light brown of the boat and the blue and yellow spots scattered here and there. The flowers of the water lilies find their counterpoint in the white and red of Lotty's outfit, which is bathed in light and catches the eye.
The painter is experiencing a happy period which combines material comfort and a freedom to create with a blooming "family life". It is this harmony that Smit henceforth affixes in his paintings.
1. Massé 1920-1935, 10 November 1929, p. [9].
2. See [PS 306].
