Jules-Alexandre Grün

possibly Harold Vanderbilt, Palm Beach;

possibly John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Palm Beach;

Howard Fafard, Palm Beach;

His Sale, 4-5 November 2020;

Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Salon, Paris 1911, p. 473, nos. 5111, 5112 (each as Décoration d'un bar du casino de Monte-Carlo).

Le livre d'or des peintres exposants, Paris 1937, p. 329.

Paris, Salon, 1911, nos. 5111, 51112 (each as Décoration d'un bar du casino de Monte-Carlo)

Exhibited at the 1911 Paris Salon, Jules-Alexandre Grün painted these two decorative panels for a casino bar in Monte Carlo. In one panel, flower-adorned festive putti drink, sing, and dance with grapes, popping bottles of champagne and raising coupe glasses beneath a propeller plane while in the pendant panel the same merry-making characters process beneath a crescent moon, frolicking with full pints of beer, one astride a goat, and another crowned like Bacchus or Dionysis.

The panels were probably acquired by Addison Mizner for El Solano, the Palm Beach home he built in 1925 and sold to Harold K. Vanderbilt. Owners of the house have included John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who bought the beachside estate in 1980. After Lennon's death, Ono sold the property to New England developer Howard Fafard, in whose collection the panels remained.

In addition to his work as a painter, Grün enjoyed a successful career as an illustrator and poster artist.