Further Images
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Signed | Signed and dated upper right |
| Size | 16.00" × 13.00" (40.6cm × 33.0cm) |
| Framed Size | 20.00" × 17.00" (50.8cm × 43.2cm) |
| Dated | 1906 |
| Condition | Very good condition |
| Provenance | This work has been authenticated by Daniel Marchesseau, author of the catalogue raisonné of Laurencin's work, and a certificate dated 10 March 2026 will be provided to the purchaser The collection of Jean Paulhan The descendants of his wife Germaine Pascal, née Dauptain Marie Laurencin and Jean Paulhan very quickly developed a friendship, as evidenced by this early work, painted in 1905, upon the artist's completion of her studies at the École de Sèvres and the Académie Humbert. |
| About this Painting | A figure in black in a garden in full bloom — her face barely suggested beneath a white hat, the flowers around her painted with a freedom and physical energy that is completely at odds with the delicate, powdery palette Laurencin would later become famous for. This is Marie Laurencin (1883–1956) in 1905, aged twenty-two, fresh from the Académie Humbert and the École de Sèvres, two years before she would meet Apollinaire and enter the world of the Cubists. She has not yet found her signature style — and the painting is all the more compelling for it. The brushwork is direct and gestural: short, varied strokes in the Impressionist manner that build the garden from pure observation — the whites and pinks and deep crimsons of the flowers, the greens of the foliage, the warm ochres and reds of the wall behind. The figure itself is painted with greater restraint, the dark of the dress an anchor against the chromatic energy of the garden, the face deliberately unresolved in the manner of a painter interested in presence rather than portraiture. It is an unusually ambitious early work — confident in its handling, assured in its colour, fully alive. Jean Paulhan, who acquired this painting and kept it in his personal collection for the rest of his life, wrote of Laurencin: "Marie n'était guère faite pour un temps où les tableaux sont devenus des réflexions, et des vues, plutôt que des visions. Elle nous a été donnée tout de même. Comme une pure grâce." — "Marie was hardly made for a time when paintings have become reflections and views rather than visions. She was given to us all the same. Like a pure grace." Paulhan was director of the Nouvelle Revue Française from 1925 to 1940 and again from 1953 until his death in 1968 — the most significant literary editor in twentieth-century France — and a collector whose eye and judgment were among the finest of his generation. This work has been authenticated by Daniel Marchesseau, author of the catalogue raisonné of Laurencin's work, and a certificate dated 10 March 2026 will be provided to the purchaser. It has been conserved in the family of Paulhan's wife, Germaine Pascal, from the time of his death until today — a provenance of extraordinary intimacy and distinction. |
SOLD
