Juan Gris

Galerie Simon, Paris
Raoul Laroche, Paris
Galerie Léonce Rosenberg, Paris
André Lefèvre, Paris (acquired by 1946. Sold: Palais Galliéra, Paris, 29th November 1966, lot 80)
Family of André Lefèvre, Paris (purchased at the above sale. Sold: Drouot-Richelieu, Paris, 21st December 2007, lot 155)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Paris, Galerie Simon, Juan Gris, 1923, no. 10
Paris, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Les Créateurs du Cubisme, 1935, no. 48
Stockholm, Art espagnol contemporain, 1937
Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Collection André Lefèvre, 1964, no. 106
Dortmund, Museum am Ostwall & Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Juan Gris, 1965-66, no. 64, illustrated in the catalogue

Hans Hildebrandt, Die Kunst des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, Potsdam, 1924, illustrated p. 313
Waldemar George, Juan Gris, Paris, 1931, illustrated pl. 37
Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Juan Gris: sa vie, son œuvre, ses écrits, Paris, 1946, illustrated pl. XXII
Douglas Cooper, Letters of Juan Gris, 1913-1927, London, 1956, no. CI, illustrated p. 8
Douglas Cooper, Juan Gris, catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint, Paris, 1977, vol. II, no. 343, illustrated p. 143

The canvas is lined. Apart from a diagonal line of retouching in the left part, and some surrounding spots and small areas of retouching, mainly in the left half of the composition, visible under ultra-violet light, this work is in good condition. Colours: In comparison to the printed catalogue illustration, the colours are overall stronger and more varied in the original. The yellow of the chair is less orange in the original, and some areas including the jug are olive green rather than brown.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Painted in 1920, Le Broc marks an important shift in the development of Juan Gris's painting. In the years following World War I, he moved away from complex Cubist compositions and embraced a simpler, more elegant style, which was largely influenced by the rappel à l'ordre that characterised most of the Parisian avant-garde art during the post-war years. The subject of the still-life remained Gris's favourite motif, and in the present work he depicted some of the key elements of Cubist iconography – a pitcher, a glass, a piece of fruit and a sheet of paper, all arranged on an ambiguous surface, in front of a wooden chair. One of the main characteristics of this new style in Gris's art was the use of formal 'rhymes', where a single shape denotes different objects. In the present work, for example, the curved outline of the jug becomes the edge of the glass, while the lower edge of the paper also denotes the shape of the fruit.

 

Writing about this period in Gris's painting, Douglas Cooper and Gary Tinterow wrote that he 'abandoned the late "synthetic" Cubist style that he had developed since 1916 in favour of a more fluid, "poetic" style of painting, in which he preserved much of the essential pictorial discipline of Cubism and of his own methods of non-illusionistic representation which he had been developing from the start of his career. New stylistic features here are Gris's insistence on formal resemblances and contrasts, and his extensive use of formal "rhymes", that is to say, the repetition of the same form [...] to signify different things' (D. Cooper & G. Tinterow in The Essential Cubism (exhibition catalogue), Tate Gallery, London, 1983, p. 178).