CROQUET GALLERY: Un Jeu de Croquet

Louise Abbéma, a French painter-engraver-sculptor, studied under Chaplin, Henner, and Carolus-Duran.  She became famous at age 18 for her portrait of actress Sarah Bernhardt who later would create a sculpture of Abbéma. The close relationship between them was lifelong. Exhibiting regularly in France, Abbéma also created numerous decorative ceilings and panels for private homes and illustrations for books and other publications.  Abbéma was made Knight of the Legion of Honor in 1906.

1872
Tremaine Arkley Collection, Independence, Oregon, USA
by Louise Abbéma (1853-1927)

38.9 x 55.8 cm, oil on fabric. Signed and inscribed "A mon ami Blaret, Triport".

22 August 1993
by John Russell in The New York Times

At the newly formed National Croquet Gallery in the Newport Art Museum, there is an exhibition called The Art of Croquet. It is not, and does not pretend to be, an exhibition of major art, but it will give pleasure and amusement to every amateur of that most insidious of summer games.

In terms of painterly achievement, the show (on view through March 1) is dominated by a small masterpiece of precocity, the Un Jeu de Croquet by Louise Abbema. Abbema in adult life was a fascinating and controversial figure, best known for her long association with Sarah Bernhardt. But in 1872, when she was still only a schoolgirl, she astonished many people in Paris by painting the Un Jeu de Croquet, in which nothing is either childish, tentative or immature.

The painting sets before us a vast and luminous beach-and-seascape of the kind at which Eugene Boudin excelled. It then goes on to populate that beach in a way that scores 10 out of 10 for sharpness of social observation. In the bunched players on the beach, and in the two women who make a point of sitting to one side on their own, there is story material that Guy de Maupassant himself would have been glad to take over.

In this remarkable painting, we see at once why it was that in the 1860's and 1870's the cry of "Croquet, anyone?" began to be almost mandatory among weekend parties in the United States, in Britain and in France. A weekend without croquet was a weekend cut short.

Croquet had something for everyone. It could foster an exquisite expertise. It was also — up to a point, and at a beginner's level — a game that almost anyone could play. It could also be played with beat-up old mallets and balls overdue for retirement and on almost any patch of ratty old grass.

Croquet had a confidential side, made up of whispered asides and glances that spoke for admiration and connivance. In that regard, it was the next best thing to the dance floor. But it could be played in a boisterous, up-front manner that allowed of the settling of old scores and the racking up of new ones.

In short, it was an all-purpose game for all-purpose people. As such, it was perfectly made for the art of the day. …

But under the auspices of the National Croquet Association, and in association with the American Federation of Arts, the gallery has in hand for 1996 a major exhibition of croquet art. …

Meanwhile, the inaugural show is made up almost entirely from the collections of two fellow enthusiasts, Tremaine Arkley and Richard Pearman. …

…

The exhibition also has a delightful surprise for visitors who have sometimes felt that they will be doomed for life to play croquet with balls that are too big to go through the hoops. There on the wall, just to console us, is an untitled picture by an unknown artist that sets out precisely that unpleasant state of affairs. Huge balls have drifted up against hoops that will never let them through. "Help! Help!" we say aloud as we head for the door.