Lot 34*,AR
FERNAND LÉGER(1881-1955)Étude de remorqueur
Ending from 28 November 2025, 12:00 GMT
Online, London, New Bond Street£1,500 - £2,000
Ask about this lot
Adelaide Dunn
Associate Specialist, Head of Sale
FERNAND LÉGER (1881-1955)
Étude de remorqueur
pencil on paper
24.6 x 24.5cm (9 11/16 x 9 5/8in).
Executed circa 1920-1923
pencil on paper
24.6 x 24.5cm (9 11/16 x 9 5/8in).
Executed circa 1920-1923
Footnotes
Provenance
Maurice Lefebvre-Foinet Collection, Paris (probably acquired directly from the artist).
Lefebvre-Foinet Collection, Paris (by descent from the above); their sale, Christie's, Paris, 1 December 2009, lot 171.
Private collection, Switzerland (acquired at the above sale).
The present work was formerly in the collection of the Lefebvre-Foinet family, a Parisian dynasty renowned for its pivotal role in providing high-quality artistic materials to painters and artists of the 20th century. The legacy began with Paul Foinet, followed by his son-in-law Lucien Lefebvre, and was later continued by Lucien's son, Maurice Lefebvre-Foinet, who was an acquaintance of Léger's. Maurice would regularly and warmly accept signed works from his artistic clientele in exchange for supplies, thereby amassing an extraordinary collection of modern art, including also works by Alberto Giacometti, Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró.
The present work is a preparatory study for Leger's 1918-1923 series of paintings exploring the theme of the tugboat (recorded in G. Bauquier, Fernand Léger, catalogue raisonné, Vol. I & Vol. II, Paris, 1990 & 1992, nos. 129, 130, 255, 256, 257, 341, 347 and 348). It reflects themes central to Léger's oeuvre: the city and the machine, which he elevates to symbols of modernity. Influenced by his experiences in World War I, Léger recognised the dissolution of traditional societal values, replaced by a new reality shaped by industrialisation, metallurgy and mechanisation. As an advocate for this modernity, Léger glorifies the world of machines and the new city in this series, forging a poetics of machinery and a new geometric order that evokes the energy of modern life.