Maisons cubistes au bord de l’eau

Inscriptions: Signed with monogram M (lower right)

Provenance: Galerie L’Effort Moderne, Paris

E. & A. Silberman Galleries, New York

Private collection (acquire circa 1940)

Sotheby’s, Paris, 8 December 2011, lot 43

Notes: Landscape with Church is neither lacking in surface activity or overall dynamic effect. Improvisation appears to be one of its defining elements, with special attention given to ornamentation. It’s apparent simplicity masks a complex apparatus at the core of its creation.

This is the type of image-making that would have prompted Degas in 1916 to exclaim ‘that these young people [the Cubists] are doing something more difficult than painting. 

A point-by-point illumination of this chancel object can be pondered in the Metzinger monograph, Volume II.