Georges Braque

Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Paris (sold: 4e vente Kahnweiler, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 7-8, 1923, lot 4)

Rose Fried Gallery, New York

Mrs. Charles H. Russell, Jr., New York (acquired circa 1930)

John S. H. Russell, Washington, D.C.

E.V. Thaw & Co., Inc., New York

Ms. Ruth G. Hardman, Tulsa, Oklahoma (acquired from the above in 1982 and sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 6, 2004, lot 115)

Acquired from the above sale

New York, Saidenberg Gallery, Georges Braque, An American Tribute, 1964, no. 29

Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou; Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Braque: The Papier Collés, 1982-83, no. 22, illustrated in the catalogue

Vienna, The Albertina Museum, Goya bis Picasso. Meisterwerke der Sammlung Jan Krugier und Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski, 2005, no. 137, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Munich, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung,  Das Ewige Auge - Von Rembrandt bis Picasso. Meisterwerke aus der Sammlung Jan Krugier und Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski, 2007, no. 171, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Albert Eugene Gallatin, Georges Braque, New York, 1943, illustrated upside down on the frontispiece 

Malcolm Gee, Dealers, Critics, and Collectors of Modern Painting, New York & London, 1981, listed appendix F, p. 50

Nicole Worms de Romilly & Jean Laude, Braque, le cubisme, 1907-1914, Paris, 1982, no. 211, illustrated p. 223

Very good condition. There is some wear along the extreme edges of the cardboard. The faux-bois paper is lifting from the support along the bottom and right edges; the brown paper is lifting along the left and top edges. The creases in the paper appear to have been a result of the artist's mounting process. Under UV, there is some old spot-retouching to the white along the edges. The artist's pinholes are visible at the top and bottom. The paint layer appears intact, and the support is stable and in very good condition.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Braque completed this carefully-crafted still life during what is commonly known as his Synthetic Cubist period.  In contrast to his Analytic Cubist compositions of the preceding years, these works were composed with a greater attention to the individuality of each compositional element and its surrounding space.  In these pictures, objects are flattened, shallow space projects forward rather than recedes, and colors are usually neutral tones of grays, tans and black.  One of the most successful means of achieving this effect was by the use of collage, a process that emphasized the variety of components within a given composition. 

For this collage, Braque creates the still-life of a glass and bottle by using a variety of media, including colored paper and 'imitation wood' paper.  He positions these objects on an oval-shaped board that alludes to the surface of a table-top.  Braque began using oval formats in 1910 and increasingly employed them in his Synthetic Cubist compositions.  The artist was fascinated with the compact pictorial surface and the greater concentration of subject matter that was allowed by the elision of corners.  "With oval formats," he famously commented, "I regained the sense of the horizontal and the vertical."  Karen Wilkin has written the following about these compositions: "Fragments of trompe-l'oeil modeling, a relic both of Braque's past and of the papiers collés, form a stabilizing vertical and horizontal axis, cardinal points against which everything fans out in a casual scattering of luminous planes.  Braque turns the commonplace, by now predictable iconography of the Cubist studio into some of the most elegant, intelligent painting of the twentieth century" (K. Wilkin, Braque, New York, 1991, pp. 36-37).