Juan Gris

Galerie Simon, Paris (acquired by 1923)
Gustav Kahnweiler, London
Galería Artur Ramón, Barcelona
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1995

Paris, Galerie Simon, Juan Gris, 1923, no. 42
Bern, Kunstmuseum, Juan Gris, 1955, no. 97

Juan Antonio Gaya-Nuño, Juan Gris, Paris, 1974, no. 400, illustrated p. 220
Douglas Cooper, Juan Gris, Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint, Paris, 1977, vol. II, no. 402, illustrated p. 224

Painted on panel, laid down on cradled panel. The panel is sound. UV examination reveals a small cluster of small spots of retouching to the dark brown pigment towards the lower left corner and intermittent very small retouchings along all four extreme edges. The inherent imperfections of the panel are in places visible through the paint surface. This work is in overall good condition. Colours: fairly accurate in the printed catalogue, though the red tones are slightly more prominent in the brown pigment in the original.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Painted in 1922, Verre et Bouteille is a bold and harmonious geometrical composition that was painted shortly after the artist’s return to Paris from Céret, where he had been forced to retreat due to his increasingly deteriorating health. It is testament to the artist’s turn in this period to a more poetic style of painting. Gris felt that his earlier works lacked a ‘sensitive and sensuous side’ and sought to create a more harmonious relationship between the forms of his forthcoming works. The present work is amongst his most successful attempts at this approach and illustrates a level of lyricism of forms unprecedented in his work. At the same time, it also reveals the renewed enthusiasm Gris began to feel after he returned to the Parisian artistic milieu that he so deeply missed in the secluded Céret.

This daring and rich depiction of that most iconic of Cubist subjects, a wine bottle and a glass, is particularly innovative in its embrace of pure and austere geometry. Completely abandoning his earlier modulations of shapes, Gris introduces wide, interlocking planes of uniformly saturated colour. While these are linked to the subjects they stand for – red to wine, green to the bottle, toned white to the glass, and brown to the table – they are freely interchanged and experimented with. No longer merely representing the objects they relate to in real life, the forms open a world of ambiguity. The fact that the entire composition is painted on a wooden board, evocative of the surface table depicted in the work, pushes the visual logic of this work to yet another level.  Gris thus transforms a humble everyday encounter into an intriguing riddle.