Brancusi

Constantin BRANCUSI 1876-1957

Femme au peigne or Profil de femme au chignon (Woman with a comb or Profile of a Woman with a Hair Bun) c. 1912 Gouache on paper Signed lower right C. Brancusi 49 x 37 cm (19.3 x 14.5 in.)

Provenance: H.R.H. the Maharajah of Indore, Yeshwant Rao, called Rao Henri-Pierre Roché, Paris Private collection, by descent, Paris Private collection, Paris Exhibition: Brussels, BOZAR, Brancusi, la sublimation de la forme, October 1st 2019-January 12th 2020 (Curator : Mrs. Doïna Lemny, “attachée de conservation” at Musée national d’Art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris) The authenticity of this work was confirmed by Margit Rowell, on January 4th, 2018.

David Lévy & Associés SPRL, 199 Avenue Albert , 1190 Bruxelles, www.davidlevy.art, +32 (0)475 661225

The delicate gouache of a bowed female head Femme au peigne is a rare painted work on paper by Brancusi, whose entire non-sculptural œuvre numbers less than two hundred pieces, primarily portraits of women and nudes.

He almost never drew preliminary studies for his sculptures, but most are independent aesthetic explorations. Brancusi prized these works enough to show them in formal exhibitions, first at gallery Brummer in Paris and later in New York. Although Brancusi’s paintings and drawings demonstrate an approach to form entirely consistent with his sculptural œuvre, these graphic media encouraged a far greater gestural liberty than wood, stone, or bronze.

Femme au peigne was painted circa 1912, in the midst of a brief, decisive period in which Brancusi attained the elemental purity of form that would define his signature modernist achievement for his entire career. As in his sculpture, Brancusi often painted and drew in series of variations, with a marked tendency toward simplification as he moved through a theme. “In his drawings, Margit Rowell has written, Brancusi provides significant clues as to his vision and his priorities” (Constantin Brancusi, exh. cat. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1995, p. 287) The present gouache is one of three paintings and at least three drawings in which Brancusi explored the motif of a young woman in profile, her gaze cast downward, her head and neck forming a single, smooth arc.

In 1910 Brancusi met Margit Pogany, a young Hungarian woman which became his muse for the following years. He made various versions of her sculpted portrait, among them, a marble, Mademoiselle Pogany, version I, from 1912 in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Our gouache, painted circa 1912, was probably from the same inspiration.

This posture of self-absorption recalls the sculptor’s Muses series that he started early 1910’s, searching to reach the essence of the woman figure, beginning with Femme se regardant dans un miroir of 1909, which he radically re-carved six years later as the notorious Princesse X.

Mademoiselle Pogany, version I, 1912, white marble, limestone block, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Mademoiselle Pogany, version I, 1913, after marble of 1912 New York MoMA

David Lévy & Associés SPRL, 199 Avenue Albert , 1190 Bruxelles, www.davidlevy.art, +32 (0)475 661225

« C’est la femme, la synthèse même de la femme, c’est l’Éternel féminin de Goethe, réduit à son essence. » (“It is ‘Woman,’ the very synthesis of Woman, it is the eternal female of Goethe, reduced to her essence.”) (Ibid., p.138), he explained of the latter work, infuriated when Picasso linked it to a phallus.

In the present gouache, Brancusi has rendered the model’s head and neck in pale, luminous hues that suggest the way that skin – or marble – catches the light. The curly black hair, piled atop the head, provides a striking contrast in both tone and graphic incident.

This gouache belonged to Henri-Pierre Roché who was a French collector and art dealer, as well as an art critic and writer. He was a key figure in the Parisian bohemian literary and artistic world of Montmartre and Montparnasse, and his articles appeared in the most incisive journals, such as the Ermitage and Vers et Prose. He was a friend of Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, and Blaise Cendrars, as well as of many visual artists, including le Douanier Rousseau, Brancusi, Soutine, Braque, and Diego Rivera. He introduced Gertrude and Leo Stein to modern art when, beginning in 1905, he sold them paintings by Picasso. He had a romantic relationship with Marie Laurencin when she was very young and was her first collector. He introduced her to Paul Cassirer and Paul Rosenberg, and, in Berlin, to Alfred Flechtheim, who open doors for her that led to her success. And it was him, who, in 1917, sold her painting Le Zèbre to the millionaire lawyer John Quinn.

That same year, he was sent as part of a diplomatic mission to New York, where he met Gaston Gallimard, Man Ray, Picabia, and Marcel Duchamp, with whom he remained friends; together they founded the Dada review The Blind Man, in which Duchamp theorized the readymade. He went back to New York in 1920; during that trip John Quinn commissioned him to create a collection including, among others, Brancusi, Matisse, and Picasso, which gave him the opportunity to learn all the secrets of the art dealer’s trade.

Upon returning to Paris, he reconnected with old friends, in particular, Marcel Duchamp, but also Gris, Picasso, Brancusi, Braque, Marie Laurencin, Cocteau, and Erik Satie, whom he introduced to Gertrude Stein. When John Quinn died in 1924, he was able, with Duchamp’s help, to buy the 30 pieces by Brancusi that were in his collection and re-sell them in the following years.

After the death of his mother in 1929, Henri-Pierre Roché became the confidant of Yeshwant Rao, known as Bala, the son of H.R.H. the Maharajah of Indore, who lived in SaintGermain-en-Laye. Roché had met the young prince several years earlier when he’d served as an intermediary for a fulllength portrait commissioned from Boutet de Monvel. He took charge of the prince’s artistic education and accompanied him on his travels.

Bernard Boutet de Monvel, H.R.H. the Maharadjah of Indore, 1934, oil on canvas, 85 x 85 cm, private collection

David Lévy & Associés SPRL, 199 Avenue Albert , 1190 Bruxelles, www.davidlevy.art, +32 (0)475 661225

He also introduced him to Brancusi, whose “birds” series immediately intrigued him. In 1932, Roché suggested a black marble version of L’Oiseau, which the prince bought for the considerable sum of 250 000 francs.

In 1934, Roché took Bala and his young wife to Brancusi’s studio, where he viewed the sculptor’s plans for Le Temple de l’amour, in which the couple’s collected works would be positioned around a small body of water. The works included the black marble L’Oiseau, another that Brancusi would do in white marble, a third in bronze, and the Colonne du baiser.

The death of the maharani the following year unfortunately turned the prince away from the project. ––

David Lévy & Associés SPRL, 199 Avenue Albert , 1190 Bruxelles, www.davidlevy.art, +32 (0)475 661225