Pablo Picasso

Galerie Kahnweiler, Paris (sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 4e Vente Kahnweiler, 7th & 8th May 1923, lot 331)
Jean Lurçat, Paris
Marthe Hennebert, Paris (acquired by 1942, probably from the above)
Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris
Lydia Winston Malbin, Detroit & New York (acquired from the above on 19th November 1952. Sale: Sotheby's, New York, 3rd May 2006, lot 26)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Ann Arbor, University of Michigan, 20th Century Painting and Sculpture From the Winston Collection, 1955, no. 53
Detroit, Institute of Arts; Virginia, Museum of Art; San Francisco, Museum of Art & MiIlwaukee, Art Institute, Collecting Modern Art: Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Lewis Winston, 1957-58, no. 83
Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, 1958
Detroit Institute of Arts, The Varied Works of Picasso, 1962
Richmond, Virginia Museum, 1964
Detroit Institute of Arts, Selections from the Lydia & Harry L. Winston Collection, 1972-73
New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Futurism: a Modern Focus: the Lydia and Harry Lewis Winston Collection, Dr. and Mrs. Barnett Malbin, 1973-74, no. 81

Christian Zervos, Pablo Picasso. Œuvres de 1912 à 1917, Paris, 1942, vol. 2**, no. 453, illustrated pl. 212
Franco Russoli & Fiorella Minervino, L'opera completa di Picasso cubista, Milan, 1972, no. 664, illustrated p. 119
Pierre Daix & Joan Rosselet, Le Cubisme de Picasso, Neuchâtel, 1979, no. 659, illustrated p. 316
Malcolm Gee, Dealers, Critics and Colectors of Modern Painting, New York & London, 1981, Appendix F, listed p. 34
Josep Palau i Fabre, Picasso Cubism, 1907-1917, New York, 1990, no. 1117, illustrated p. 383
Picasso and Braque: A Symposium, New York, 1992, illustrated p. 303
Cubist Picasso (exhibition catalogue), Musée National Picasso, Paris, 2007-08, illustrated in colour p. 116

The board is stable and is showing some paper skinning and handling marks at the edges. Apart from some surface dirt, this work is in good condition. Colours: Overall fairlly accurate, although slightly fresher 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."

Of all the manifestations of Picasso's art throughout his long career, his Cubist compositions are among his most inventive and aesthetically original. Picasso, along with Georges Braque, pioneered this artistic movement and introduced the avant-garde to new levels of pictorial abstraction. Still-lifes were usually their favoured subjects, and never before had this age-old theme been interpreted with such a radical approach. Picasso experimented with the deconstruction and reconstruction of form and the manipulation of space in these compositions, exposing the physical properties of the objects he was depicting. Verre sur une table, executed in the spring of 1914, is a wonderful rendition of this theme. In this picture, Picasso presents the objects on the table as they would appear from several different vantage points, providing a spectacle that would not otherwise be possible in a two-dimensional representation.   

During the second decade of the twentieth century, Picasso's Cubism developed from fractured, highly abstract 'analytical' depictions of form to more legible 'synthetic' compositions that incorporated elements of collage. Verre sur une table exemplifies the tenets of this later phase of Cubism. 

The sticker 331 that appears in the lower left corner of this work was placed on the collage when it was sold at the Kahnweiler sale in 1923. The work bears this sticker in the reproduction in the catalogue raisonné. Palau i Fabre states that the Kahnweiler sale catalogue mentioned a signature on the verso, not the recto. He concludes that the signature on the recto must have been added after the Kahnweiler sale. After this auction, the work belonged to the collection of the artist Jean Lurçat, whose Cubist inspired paintings were later made into tapestries by the Hennebert workshops in Toulon. It is most likely that Mme Hennebert acquired this work directly from Lurçat.

Lydia Winston Malbin, who acquired this work in 1952, was the daughter of the famed Detroit-based architect, Albert Kahn. She began collecting Cubist and Futurist art in the 1930s with the advice of Alfred Stieglitz and Alfred H. Barr, Jr. In May 1990, Sotheby's sold a large portion of her original collection, and the event became known as one of the most important sales in modern auction history.