Footnotes

The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Annie Guédras.

Provenance
Séverin Wunderman Collection, Côte d'Azur; his sale, Bonhams, Knightsbridge, 25 January 2011, lot 171.
Private collection, London (acquired at the above sale).

Exhibited
Sapporo, Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Exhibition Jean Cocteau, Séverin Wunderman Collection, 19 April – 29 May 2005, no. 57 (later travelled to Tokyo, Kofu, Kobe and Morioka).


The front of the present work is an homage to Jean Cocteau's friend Paul Klee, depicting him as a Modern dandy and labelling him as an epigone of Athens. The lively, outlandish motifs, such as the monkey-dog Klee walks and the fish flying by, comprise an unlikely foreground against the distant Acropolis. An enthusiast for the Classical world, Cocteau could here be revering the precision and spiritual force of Klee's compositions, many of which can be interpreted as Surreal and Abstract renditions of Arcadia.

The reverse of the sheet depicts Marie Bell, a talented French actress who starred in a number of comedic and tragic roles across theatre and cinema. This drawing was likely executed as a study for a series of posters Cocteau made of Bell in the 1960s, showcasing her performance in Phèdre, Jean Racine's adaptation of the original Roman tragedy Phaedra by Lucius Annaeus Seneca.

The present work previously formed part of the illustrious collection of Séverin Wunderman, the famous luxury watch manufacturer, art collector and philanthropist, renowned for developing Gucci Timepieces into a powerful global brand. Perhaps the most notable of his international residences was Chateau Montfort, a 16th century hunting lodge on the Côte d'Azur, which he painstakingly restored, renovated and decorated. A particularly exotic homage to Cocteau existed in the form of a suite in which the entire sitting area and bedroom were covered floor to ceiling in Cocteau works. Chateau Montfort hosted a number of flamboyant events that were fixtures in the Côte d'Azur social calendar, including The White Party and The Tintin Party. Wunderman, who was considered to be the world's largest Cocteau collector before he passed away in 2008, established a museum of Cocteau's work in Menton that was adorned with works from his private collection.