Lot Essay
The present picture is a fine example of a series of still-lifes that Picasso executed in autumn and winter of 1915, a critical period in the later development of Cubism. The year 1915, while an important and fruitful one in the artist's career, marked a difficult time in his personal life. Europe was embroiled in war; Braque, Leger, and Derain had been mobilized, and Apollinaire had volunteered for service. Picasso's foreign status and his strong ties to the German patrons Kahnweiler and Thannhauser made him an object of mistrust in Paris. Moreover, in the spring, his mistress Eva's health began to fail. She died on December 14; shortly before, Picasso wrote to Gertrude Stein in Majorca, "My life is hell. Eva becomes more and more ill each day. I go to the hospital and spend most of the time in the Metro However, I have made a picture of a Harlequin that, to my way of thinking and to that of many others, is the best thing I have ever done" (quoted in W. Rubin,, ed., Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1980, p. 179).
The painting that he refers to in the letter to Gertrude is the large Harlequin in The Museum of Modern Art (Zervos, vol. 2**, no. 555), widely acclaimed as a masterpiece of the highest order. The present picture was made shortly before Harlequin, and shares with it several key characteristics: a striking and dramatic palette, with bright patches of red and white set against a somber ground of brown and black; an emphasis upon flattened, geometric form and plastic rhythm, enlivened by passages of decorative patterning; and a mood of intense, austere expressivity. Moreover, the diagonal tilt of the bottle at the left of the composition is analogous to that of the harlequin, and the diamond facetting which articulates the bottle's silhouette echoes the prismatic pattern of the harlequin's traditional costume. These elements re-appear in another still-life with a bottle of anisette, also painted in the autumn of 1915, where the spout of the vessel is even closer in form to the head and neck of the commedia dell'arte figure (Zervos, vol. 2**, no. 552; coll. Detroit Institute of Arts).
The restrained and intellectual treatment of form in the pictures leading up to Harlequin represents a distinct departure from the series of "Rococo" Cubist works executed at Avignon the previous year, with their rainbow coloring and lightness of spirit. At the same time, the applied sand in the center of the present picture and the brilliant stippling at left add a note of textured warmth and playful exuberance to the composition. The still-life elements--on the left, a bottle of Anis del Mono ("monkey's anisette"), a Catalan specialty; in the center, an elegant compotier filled with grapes; in the foreground, a small pipe--are juxtaposed in a series of bold, dynamic planes. The scalloped bowl and disc-like grapes also appear in a small oil painting on panel from late 1915 (Zervos, vol.2**, no. 826), while the interplay of rounded dish and narrow, angular bottle is explored in a wooden construction of roughly the same time (Zervos, vol.2**, no. 834).
The first owner of the present picture was Lonce Rosenberg, who took over as Picasso's dealer in 1915 after Kahnweiler, a German citizen, fled war-time France for Switzerland. The same year, Picasso executed a beautiful, neo-classical line drawing of Rosenberg (Palau i Fabre 1395).
The painting that he refers to in the letter to Gertrude is the large Harlequin in The Museum of Modern Art (Zervos, vol. 2**, no. 555), widely acclaimed as a masterpiece of the highest order. The present picture was made shortly before Harlequin, and shares with it several key characteristics: a striking and dramatic palette, with bright patches of red and white set against a somber ground of brown and black; an emphasis upon flattened, geometric form and plastic rhythm, enlivened by passages of decorative patterning; and a mood of intense, austere expressivity. Moreover, the diagonal tilt of the bottle at the left of the composition is analogous to that of the harlequin, and the diamond facetting which articulates the bottle's silhouette echoes the prismatic pattern of the harlequin's traditional costume. These elements re-appear in another still-life with a bottle of anisette, also painted in the autumn of 1915, where the spout of the vessel is even closer in form to the head and neck of the commedia dell'arte figure (Zervos, vol. 2**, no. 552; coll. Detroit Institute of Arts).
The restrained and intellectual treatment of form in the pictures leading up to Harlequin represents a distinct departure from the series of "Rococo" Cubist works executed at Avignon the previous year, with their rainbow coloring and lightness of spirit. At the same time, the applied sand in the center of the present picture and the brilliant stippling at left add a note of textured warmth and playful exuberance to the composition. The still-life elements--on the left, a bottle of Anis del Mono ("monkey's anisette"), a Catalan specialty; in the center, an elegant compotier filled with grapes; in the foreground, a small pipe--are juxtaposed in a series of bold, dynamic planes. The scalloped bowl and disc-like grapes also appear in a small oil painting on panel from late 1915 (Zervos, vol.2**, no. 826), while the interplay of rounded dish and narrow, angular bottle is explored in a wooden construction of roughly the same time (Zervos, vol.2**, no. 834).
The first owner of the present picture was Lonce Rosenberg, who took over as Picasso's dealer in 1915 after Kahnweiler, a German citizen, fled war-time France for Switzerland. The same year, Picasso executed a beautiful, neo-classical line drawing of Rosenberg (Palau i Fabre 1395).