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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 La Légion d'honneur by an appreciative French state that had acquired her La répétition (Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne) in the previous year.
When not executing portraits commissioned by the major figures of 1930s Parisian social life, Laurencin's joy in the feminine accessories that recur in her figure pictures 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, op. cit., p. 70).
When not executing portraits commissioned by the major figures of 1930s Parisian social life, Laurencin's joy in the feminine accessories that recur in her figure pictures 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, op. cit., p. 70).