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PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE FRENCH COLLECTION
Lot 12*,AR
LÉONARD TSUGUHARU FOUJITA(1886-1968)Nature morte à la couture
25 March 2021, 16:00 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £69,000 inc. premium
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LÉONARD TSUGUHARU FOUJITA (1886-1968)
Nature morte à la couture
signed and dated 'Foujita, 1929' and further signed in Japanese (lower left)
oil on canvas
16.3 x 22cm (6 7/16 x 8 11/16in).
Painted in 1929
signed and dated 'Foujita, 1929' and further signed in Japanese (lower left)
oil on canvas
16.3 x 22cm (6 7/16 x 8 11/16in).
Painted in 1929
Footnotes
The authenticity of this work has kindly been confirmed by Madame Sylvie Buisson. This work will be included in Vol. IV of the Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita catalogue raisonné currently being prepared.
Provenance
Galerie Colette Weil, Paris.
Private collection, France (acquired from the above in 1929).
Thence by descent to the present owners.
Exhibited
Paris, Musée Maillol, Foujita, peindre dans les années folles, 7 March – 15 July 2018, no. 101.
During les Années folles in Paris, there were many colourful figures who lead the avant-garde artistic scenes of Montmartre and Montparnasse, but few as flamboyant and recognisable as Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita. Arriving from Japan just before the First World War, Foujita threw himself into the fashionable circles of Parisian life throughout the twenties, and became known for his unique dress sense as well as for his ethereal and other-worldly canvases. Foujita designed and made his own clothes, and would often be spotted at Brasserie La Coupole with his fellow artist Kawashima in matching couture.
Foujita famously stayed up all night creating a beautiful blue silk blouse for the artist and model Fernande Barrey: his creation won the affections of the beautiful Barrey, who he would go on to marry. Painted the year after their divorce, Foujita here depicts the tools of his passion for dress-making: the buttons, threads, scissors and thimble. They are displayed with a solemn contemplation, not just scattered tools but holy relics. Foujita imbues the objects with a loftiness worthy of the traditional subjects of still-life painting, like freshly cut flowers or abundant fruits. He communicates clearly his affection for the collection of precious sewing implements, enveloping them in the same careful grey and black sfumato that the artist used at this time for his monumental nudes.