La fenêtre

Inscriptions: Signed (lower center-right)

Provenance: Ketterer, Stuttgart, 21 May 1960, lot 39

International Galleries, Chicago.

Harry Belafonte, New York (by 1964).

Baruch College, New York (a gift from the above).

Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, 26 April 1972, lot 53. 

Mr & Mrs F. L. Schoneman (by 1985).

Harriet Griffin Fine Arts, New York.

Obelisk Gallery, Boston (acquired from the above).

Private collection (acquired from the above on 12 March 1988).

Phillips, New York, 15 May 2024, lot 174.

Galerie Hélène Bailly, Paris

Expositions: Pre-Cubist and Cubist Works, 1900-1930, International Galleries, Chicago, 17 April – 10 May 1964, no. 18, pp. 30, 32, reproduced.

Jean Metzinger in Retrospect, The University of Iowa Museum of Art, 31 August – 13 October 1985; The Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, University of Texas, Austin, 10 November – 22 December 1985; The David and Alfred Smart Gallery, University of Chicago, 23 January – 9 March 1986; Carnegie Institute, Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, 29 March – 25 May 1986, catalogue no. 229, p. 120, reproduced.

Notes: Metzinger’s La fenêtre exhibits several features that are characteristic of the artist’s work, not solely between 1924 and 1930, but throughout his entire oeuvre: The use of symmetry as a means of obtaining quasi-equilibrium, and the careful juxtaposition of elements within this underlying geometric armature, are a trademark of the artist. (See the Metzinger monograph, Volume II and III)

Metzinger writes in 1927: “Les éléments qui le composent, étant d’inégale importance, ne peuvent être saisis par l’esprit dans le même instant; mais aucun d’entre eux ne doit échapper à la vue dès le premier coup d’oeil.” It is the inequality of both color and form (an asymmetry flanked upon a symmetric background) that results in an overall ‘harmony in space rather than in time’. (Jean Metzinger, Notes, Bulletin de L’Effort moderne, February 1927 n. 32)