Ballarina

Inscriptions: Signed and dated 34 (lower left)

Literature: Museu Municipal de Tossa de Mar, Los Sitios, Diario del movimiento en Gerona, 5 December 1974.

La Tossa perduda, Museu Municipal de Tossa de Mar, Avui, 21 July 2007, reproduced.

Notes: Formerly the Governor’s House, the Museu Municipal de Tossa de Mar houses Metzinger’s Ballarina in the permanent collection. Inaugurated 1 September 1935, the museum comprises an important collection of modern and contemporary art by Spanish and foreign artists who frequented Tossa during the 1930s; including Marc Chagall, André Masson, Oscar Zügel, Rafael Benet, Josep Mompou, Pere Creixams, Enric Casanovas, Emili Bosch-Roger, amongst others.

Ballarina most certainly represent the artist’s wife Suzanne, as many works by Metzinger during the late 1920s through the 1950s. Adorned with ribbons and a rose a l’Espagnol she strikes a pose consistent with three or four works of the same year. Background and foreground elements are fused with translucency. Her left arm and face in shadow contrast with her incandescent epicurean breasts, something the artists seems to have greatly appreciated.