La tireuse de cartes

Inscriptions: Signed (lower right)

Provenance: Jacques and Marie-Thérèse Raulet (until 1981).

Expositions: Galerie Art Vivant, Paris, Jean Metzinger, 40 peinture inédites de 1910 à 1952, 15 May – 15 June 1952, no. 32, (titled Modèle aux cartes) reproduced on the catalogue cover.

La Section d’or, 1912, 1920, 1925 : Le cubisme écartelé, Musées de Châteauroux, 21 September – 3 December 2000, Montpellier, Musée Fabre, 15 December 2000 – 18 March 2001. Catalogue by Cécile Debray and Françoise Lucbert, p. 229, reproduced.

Littérature: Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Sunday, 6 December 1953, p. 103, reproduced.

Notes: La tireuse de cartes formed part of the Jacques and Marie-Thérèse Raulet collection, from whom in 1981 the work entered the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen permanent collection.

This circa 1947 work represents an anonymous woman wearing a blue strapless dress, revealing her upper body, seated at a table and drawing cards. To the left is a card table covered with a green felt or baize, behind which a table supports a lamp, vase and teacup (perhaps a reference to Metzinger’s 1911 Le goûter, Tea Time (AM-11-012).
La Tireuse de cartes herself is seen both frontally and in profile; Metzinger’s signature feature.