Further Images
| Medium | Oil on board |
| Signed | Signed lower right |
| Size | 20.00" × 24.00" (50.8cm × 61.0cm) |
| Framed Size | 26.00" × 30.00" (66.0cm × 76.2cm) |
| Dated | 1924 |
| Condition | Very good condition |
| Provenance | Private collection - Normandy |
| About this Painting | Pierre de Belay (French, 1890–1947), La Partie de cartes, oil on board, signed lower right; inscribed on the reverse "La Partie de cartes – de Belay – 1924 – Finistère". Two Breton men sit at a bare table in a whitewashed corner, playing cards. Both wear the ribboned hat and dark blue jacket of the Finistère coast; one is seen from behind, the other bent forward over his hand, face flushed and lowered. Between them stand two black bottles, two yellow bowls and a clay pipe laid on the wood. De Belay reduces the room to flat planes and firm dark contours, holding the walls to a scoured putty-grey so that the two blue figures and the acid green of the window carry the whole picture. It is Breton life without folklore or the picturesque — a quiet, obstinate image with the weight of Cézanne's card players behind it. Born at Quimper in 1890 and largely self-taught, de Belay was recognised early by the poet Max Jacob, who took him to Paris in 1905; he lived at the Bateau-Lavoir among Picasso, Juan Gris and Apollinaire while keeping entirely his own course. From 1923 he spent summers in Finistère painting the ports of Douarnenez, Audierne and Concarneau, and this panel comes from that first Breton period. His work is held in Quimper, Bordeaux, Rouen, Versailles, Brussels, Ostend, Geneva and San Francisco. |
ON HOLD
