Femme aux raisins

Inscriptions: Signed (lower left)

Provenance: Mme. F. Angles, Paris

Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc., New York, 1970.

Mrs. H.C. Hanszen, Houston.

Alice C. Simkins.

Gift to the MFAH from Alice C. Simkins, 1995.

Exhibitions: Patrick Henry Bruce, Corollary Exhibition, Related Paintings 1916-1936, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 31 May – 29 July 1979.

Five Hundred Years of French Art, San Antonio Museum of Art, Texas, 7 April – 20 August 1995.

Notes: Woman with Grapes was formerly catalogued as circa 1916-17 since it exhibits a similar process of abstraction present in Metzinger’s work during the First World War. However, the overall spirit of the painting is consistent with works dated circa 1947, or thereafter. 

Woman with Grapes is not actually dated (either in front or on the reverse). It seems the former date is attributed to a sticker (center verso), which itself was possibly written under pressure by galleries, curators, museums or collectors to acquire or exhibit early works (from the Cubist period); or simply because the differentiation between Metzinger’s early- and late-Cubist styles has remained elusive, until recently that is.