Vallée avec arbres a droite des oliviers

Inscriptions: Signed JM (lower right)

Provenance: Valérie Queto

Exhibitions: Possibly Salon d’Automne 1908.

Possibly Salon des Indépendants, 80e exposition, Rétrospective 1910, Grand Palais Paris, 28 March – 20 April 1969, no. 64 (titled Paysage and dated 1909)

Notes: Descriptively titled Valée avec arbres à droite des olivier, the painting’s subtle green and blue colors and contrasting tones, expressionist brushwork, thick impasto and quasi-symmetric geometrically challenging construction bears all of the hallmarks of Metzinger’s Portrait de Guillaume Apollinaire (AM-08-003). Works of the same period by Metzinger, referred to by Albert Gleizes as Les Paysages du Midi, dated 1907 and 1908, are radical as far as their approach to early Cubism is concerned. This work was most certainly produced towards the second half of 1907 and the first half 1908, just prior to, or around the same time as Metzinger’s portrait of Apollinaire.