The Barnes Foundation isn’t easy to visit. In fact, I told my sister it was like arranging a meeting at a CIA safe house.
We ordered tickets in February. We got lost on the way because the estate sits totally unmarked on a residential
street in Merion, PA. We were given a 15-minute window in which to arrive and park. And when we finally arrived, we realized there was no wall text with any of the paintings; we didn’t know what we were looking at.
It’s an enigmatic place with a tangled political history– watch the documentary Art of the Steal to get a full, if one-sided, account–but it’s also one of the world’s greatest collections of 19th and 20th century French paintings. The Cezannes and Renoirs are legion, but, as usual, the Matisses drew me in.
This painting, A Sitting Rifian, sits in the mansion’s main salon and is hard to miss. My first thought, upon seeing it, was: “A ladies’ man.” Funny, because the same afternoon Dominique Strauss-Kahn made a calamitous decision in a New York hotel room, forever altering my perception of the phrase.
I’ll use it advisedly from here on.
