This painting is one of the first Cubist works by Braque to feature a musical instrument. His inclusion of food and drink recalls the tradition of allegorical still lifes that represent the five senses. Braque’s tabletop display includes a glass with two straws, a mandolin, a compote with two pears, a lemon, and an open book or, more likely, pages of sheet music with staves (lines) for musical notation. The center of the composition is luminous and pale, possibly to indicate a ray of bright light washing over the studio ensemble.
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Inscription: Signed and dated (verso, left edge, in black paint): G. Braque 09
[Galerie Kahnweiler, Paris, 1909; inv. no. 362, photo no. 1114; probably sold in 1909 to Dutilleul]; Roger Dutilleul, Paris (probably 1909–d. 1956); his nephew, Jean Masurel, Mouvaux (1956–d. 1991); his widow, Geneviève Masurel (née Geneviève Roche de la Rigodière), Paris (from 1991); private collection, France (sold in March 1999 to Lauder); Leonard A. Lauder, New York (from 1999)
Paris. Galerie Charpentier. "Le pain et le vin," 1954, no. 20.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection," October 20, 2014–February 16, 2015, no. 3.
George Isarlov. Georges Braque. Paris, 1932, p. 16, no. 60.
Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Les Années héroïques du Cubisme. Paris, 1950, ill. no. 4.
Le pain et le vin. Exh. cat., Galerie Charpentier. Paris, 1954, unpaginated, no. 20.
José Camón Aznar. Picasso y el Cubismo. Madrid, 1956, p. 722, fig. 52.
Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Der Weg zum Kubismus. Stuttgart, 1958, pp. 38, 126, ill. p. 43, as "Stilleben mit Mandoline".
Nicole Worms de Romilly and Jean Laude. [Catalogue de l'œuvre de Georges Braque]. Vol. [1], Le Cubisme, fin 1907–1914. [Paris], 1982, p. 262, no. 30, ill. p. 82.
Christie's Twentieth Century Art. May 13, 1999, p. 89, fig. 4, under no. 489.
"Objects Promised to the Museum during the Year 2012–2013." The Metropolitan Museum of Art, One Hundred Forty-third Annual Report of the Trustees for the Fiscal Year July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2013 (2013), p. 45.
Michael FitzGerald inCubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection. Ed. Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, p. 43.
Lewis Kachur inCubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection. Ed. Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, pp. 77–79, no. 3, ill. p. 79 (color).
Anna Jozefacka and Luise Mahler inCubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection. Ed. Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, p. 244, fig. 3 (as no. 4 in Ref. Kahnweiler 1950).
Jeanne-Bathilde Lacourt. "Dutilleul (Roger Adolphe)." Dictionnaire du Cubisme. Ed. Brigitte Leal. Paris, 2018, p. 244.
Charles Dellheim. Belonging and Betrayal: How Jews Made the Art World Modern. Waltham, Mass., 2021, p. 253.
The ninth-annual Women and the Critical Eye program featuring a conversation between Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow, who discuss Leonard Lauder's criteria for collecting, including the importance of the "aesthetic wow," rarity, state of conservation, and attention to a work's curriculum vitae.
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