拍品专文
At the outbreak of the First World War, Robert Delaunay was vacationing in the Spanish resort of San Sebastián with his wife Sonia. After spending some time in Madrid, they moved to Portugal in the summer of 1915 where they lived until the beginning of 1918. They spent the first nine and half months in a small village called Vila do Conde, near Oporto, where the present work was painted. “It felt as though we had arrived in a country of dreams. We threw ourselves into painting. We painted from early morning til night. We came for one summer month, and ended up staying for nearly two years—far from the world, on the edge of a huge ocean beach” (Sonia Delaunay quoted in M. Hogg, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, exh. cat., Musée national d'art moderne, Paris, 1967).
The income Robert was receiving from his family allowed the couple to dedicate themselves fully to painting during their stay, which they considered one of the happiest times in their relationship and one of their more fruitful creative periods as artists. Robert was enchanted by the warm, clear light of northern Portugal. Although he had ventured into fully abstract art in 1912–1913, unlike other painters, such as Wassily Kandinsky and František Kupka, he never saw abstraction as an end in itself.
The present work showcases Robert’s analytical study of light, which he divided and recomposed using colored geometrical shapes, while also incorporating more figurative elements into the composition. The overall tone is warm, with reds, oranges and yellows dominating the palette. The pigments are arranged according to Michel-Eugène Chevreul’s color theory, with each primary color gaining intensity as displayed alongside its complementary color, creating an interplay of simultaneous contrasts across the composition: “dissonant tones radiate light and make forms shimmer” (C. Goerg, “Les Marchés au Minho de Sonia Delaunay” in Revue d'histoire de l'art et d'archéologie, Geneva, 1965, p. 212).
Robert’s stay in Vila do Conde resulted in a series of studies culminating in three large format pictures intimately linked to each other: La Verseuse (Habasque, no. 189; Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris), Nature morte portugaise (Habasque, no. 186; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris) and Portugaise (Grande portugaise) (Habasque, no. 177; Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, Madrid) for which the present lot was the final preparatory work.
The income Robert was receiving from his family allowed the couple to dedicate themselves fully to painting during their stay, which they considered one of the happiest times in their relationship and one of their more fruitful creative periods as artists. Robert was enchanted by the warm, clear light of northern Portugal. Although he had ventured into fully abstract art in 1912–1913, unlike other painters, such as Wassily Kandinsky and František Kupka, he never saw abstraction as an end in itself.
The present work showcases Robert’s analytical study of light, which he divided and recomposed using colored geometrical shapes, while also incorporating more figurative elements into the composition. The overall tone is warm, with reds, oranges and yellows dominating the palette. The pigments are arranged according to Michel-Eugène Chevreul’s color theory, with each primary color gaining intensity as displayed alongside its complementary color, creating an interplay of simultaneous contrasts across the composition: “dissonant tones radiate light and make forms shimmer” (C. Goerg, “Les Marchés au Minho de Sonia Delaunay” in Revue d'histoire de l'art et d'archéologie, Geneva, 1965, p. 212).
Robert’s stay in Vila do Conde resulted in a series of studies culminating in three large format pictures intimately linked to each other: La Verseuse (Habasque, no. 189; Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris), Nature morte portugaise (Habasque, no. 186; Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris) and Portugaise (Grande portugaise) (Habasque, no. 177; Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, Madrid) for which the present lot was the final preparatory work.