La Jongleuse

Inscriptions: Signed (lower right)

Provenance: Kunsthandel G.J. Nieuwenhuizen Segaar, The Hague, Netherlands (acquired from the artist).

Jan Nieuwenhuizen Segaar, Galerie Nova Spectra, The Hague (by descent from the above).

Christie’s, New York, 8 November 2012, lot 440.

Expositions: Salon des Indépendants, Paris, 1934, no. 3064

Nieuwe Aanwinsten (New Acquisitions), Een prachtwerk door Metzinger (A beautiful work by Metzinger), Kunsthandel G.J. Nieuwenhuizen Segaar, The Hague, October 1936.

Littérature: Tossa, Babel de les Arts, Art. Volum Segon, Publicació de la Junta Municipal d’Exposicions d’Art, Barcelona, October 1934 – July 1935, Fig. 2, reproduced (dated 1933).

Jos. de Gruyter, Het Vaderland: staat- en letterkundig nieuwsblad, Nieuwe Aanwinsten, Een prachtwerk door Metzinger, Kunsthandel G.J. Nieuwenhuizen Segaar, The Hague, 6 October 1936.

Notes: Metzinger married Suzanne Phocas in 1929, an artist with whom he had exhibited for almost a decade in various venues. La Jongleuse likely depicts Suzanne, as several other works of the period.

“Painted in the early 1930s and exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1934, Jongleuse is a monumental post-Cubist painting which exemplifies the artist’s proficiency at solid modelling and creating an illusion of space.” (Snippet from Christie’s 8 November 2012 Lot essay)
The topic of Metzinger’s series of monumental figures within which La Jongleuse forms part is abundantly discussed in Volume III of the Metzinger monograph.