JEAN GOULDEN | STUDY FOR A BOX AND AN INCENSE-BURNER

Private Collection, France

Galerie du Luxembourg, Paris,

Drouot, Paris, November 23, 2015, lot 465

Bernard Goulden, Jean Goulden, Paris, 1989, pp. 32 (for a period photograph of an incense-burner based on the present drawing), 63 (for a related work on paper)

Jean Goulden is best remembered for the finely crafted modernist boxes that he produced in extremely limited number throughout the 1920s. It was his friend Jean Dunand who originally encouraged him to explore the champlevé enamel technique, upon which he eventually relied to create his most remarkable boxes and objects such as vases, lights, trays and clocks. He and Dunand exhibited together at the Galerie Georges Petit from 1920 through 1933. The surviving works that he produced during this period, including drawings and watercolors, are extremely rare. The present lot, an artfully-executed sketch for a box and incense-burner, is among Goulden’s few color gouaches known to exist and highlights the artist’s talents as a painter. A well-documented and iconic piece, the incense-burner based on this sketch was made circa 1931 and presented at the Galerie Georges Petit the following year.