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Lot Essay
The year 1937 was an auspicious one for Marie Laurencin. Not only was she represented at that year's Exposition Universelle as at the forefront of her artistic generation with the inclusion of sixteen of her works in the Maîtres de l'art indépendent exhibition, she was also appointed Chevalier de le Légion d'honneur by an appreciative state that had acquired her La répétition (Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne) in the previous year.
When not executing portraits for the major figures of 1930s Parisian social life, Laurencin's joy in the feminine accessories that recur in her figure pictures - pearls and flowers being two favourite elements - serve to capture the essence of the female figure, and deliberately avoid any specific act of representation of the sitter. As Laurencin's loyal companion Armand Loewengard commented to René Gimpel: '[Marie] said to me yesterday, "It's curious, but when I begin a picture my women are normal girls but then they all become princesses"' (quoted in D. Marchesseau, Marie Laurencin, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre, Tokyo 1999, p. 70).
Marcelle Berr de Turique, the first owner of Deux filles, was the author of a 1930 monograph on Raoul Dufy which was illustrated with an original etching by the artist entitled Amphitrite.
When not executing portraits for the major figures of 1930s Parisian social life, Laurencin's joy in the feminine accessories that recur in her figure pictures - pearls and flowers being two favourite elements - serve to capture the essence of the female figure, and deliberately avoid any specific act of representation of the sitter. As Laurencin's loyal companion Armand Loewengard commented to René Gimpel: '[Marie] said to me yesterday, "It's curious, but when I begin a picture my women are normal girls but then they all become princesses"' (quoted in D. Marchesseau, Marie Laurencin, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre, Tokyo 1999, p. 70).
Marcelle Berr de Turique, the first owner of Deux filles, was the author of a 1930 monograph on Raoul Dufy which was illustrated with an original etching by the artist entitled Amphitrite.