Louis le Brocquy, H.R.H.A. b.1916

A gift from the artist and thence by descent to the present owner

le Brocquy began painting still lifes in the early 1940s with works such as Still Life with Book and Penny (1941) painted using the traditional representational style characteristic of his early works. The present work was probably executed circa 1945 when the artist had become interested in analytical and synthetic cubism that he would have seen first hand at Picasso's exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London in 1945. He was perhaps also inspired by the underlying geometry evident in Cézanne's still lifes such as Still Life with Apples (circa 1895-98, Coll. Museum of Modern Art, New York).