The subject of this still life is not a clarinet as has often been thought, but a tenora, a Catalan woodwind instrument that Braque heard played by folk bands in the village of Céret in the French Pyrenees. The diagonally placed tenora rests on a rectangular tabletop, which is tilted up and rotated at an angle, its edges defined by long unbroken lines. The round knob of its front drawer appears at the base of the picture. The contours of the still-life objects, including a long-necked bottle at left and a stemmed glass at right, emerge from the luminous planes.
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Inscription: Signed (verso, upper right, in black paint): Braque
[Galerie Kahnweiler, Paris, May 1912–14; inv. no. 814, photo no. 1015, valued at Fr 500; possibly sequestered Kahnweiler stock, December 12, 1914–21; possibly second Galerie Kahnweiler sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, November 17–18, 1921, lot 29, as "Nature morte" (purchased for Fr 380, by the Kahnweiler syndicate, under the pseudonym “Grassat,” for Galerie Simon, one of the seven shareholders composing “Grassat”)];; [Galerie Simon (Daniel Henry Kahnweiler), Paris, from 1921; inv. no. 6852, photo no. 1015; probably sold to Lange]; Hermann Lange, Krefeld (late 1920s–d. 1942; by descent to private collection); his heirs, Germany (1942–96; sale, Christie’s, London, June 25, 1996, no. 22 sold to Lauder); Leonard A. Lauder, New York (from 1996)
Kunsthalle Basel. "Georges Braque," April 9–May 14, 1933, no. 62 (as 1912) [probably this picture].
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection," October 20, 2014–February 16, 2015, no. 6.
"Échos de l'Hôtel Drouot. Liste Complète des prix atteints à la deuxième vente Kahnweiler." L'Esprit Nouveau: Revue internationale illustrée de l'activité contemporaine 15 (1921), p. 1824, as "Nature Morte" [possibly this author].
George Isarlov. Georges Braque. Paris, 1932, p. 17, no. 107.
Georges Braque. Exh. cat., Kunsthalle Basel. Basel, 1933, p. 18, no. 62, probably this picture.
Guillaume Apollinaire. "Georges Braque." Cahiers d'Art 8 (1933), ill. p. 18, as 1910.
Carl Einstein. Georges Braque. Paris, 1934, unpaginated (list of plates), pl. XI, as "Le Flageolet".
Malcolm Gee. Dealers, Critics, and Collectors of Modern Painting: Aspects of the Parisian Art Market Between 1910 and 1930. PhD diss., Courtauld Institute of Art. New York, 1981, appendix F, p. 54, no. 94, as "Nature morte".
Nicole Worms de Romilly and Jean Laude. [Catalogue de l'œuvre de Georges Braque]. Vol. [1], Le Cubisme, fin 1907–1914. [Paris], 1982, pp. 270–71, no. 94, ill. p. 135, as 1910–11.
Terence Rodrigues with Victoria Tremlett. Christie's: Review of the Year 1996. London, 1996, p. 82, ill. (color), as "Bouteille et clarinette".
"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, as 1910–11.
Carl Einstein. Über Georges Braque und den Kubismus. Zurich, 2013, p. 174, fig. 11, as "Das Flageolett".
Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow inCubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection. Ed. Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, p. 236.
Isabelle Monod-Fontaine inCubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection. Ed. Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, pp. 64–68, 320(4)n.3, no. 6, ill. p. 67 (color).
Lewis Kachur inCubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection. Ed. Emily Braun and Rebecca Rabinow. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2014, p. 81.
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, pp. 245–46, fig. 6 (in Ref. Einstein 1934).
"The Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection: A Conversation with Emily Braun and Pepe Karmel." IFAR Journal 16, no. 3 (2015), pp. 51–52, figs. 33 (color, on display at the Lauder residence, New York, 2014) and 34B (color).
Julie Barten. "Georges Braque: Teapot on Yellow Background (Théière sur fond jaune), 1955." Thannhauser Collection: French Modernism at the Guggenheim. Ed. Megan Fontanella. New York, 2018, pp. 48, 51, fig. 3.4 (color).
Christel H. Force. "Intellectual Property and Ownership History." Collecting and Provenance: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Ed. Jane C. Milosch and Nick Pearce. London, 2019, p. 26, figs. 2.3 and 2..4 (verso).
Lewis Kachur inLes Musiques de Picasso. Ed. Cécile Godefroy. Exh. cat., Musée de la musique, Philharmonie de Paris. Paris, 2020, p. 87, fig. 21 (color).
Written on the verso (right of top stretcher bar, in black crayon): Lange; (right of stretcher crossbar, in blue crayon): PH C15 [encircled]
Leonard A. Lauder discusses his appreciation of the Cubist works of art he has collected. Leonard A. Lauder answers the question: "Which is your favorite picture?"
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.
The Met's engagement with art from 1890 to today includes the acquisition and exhibition of works in a range of media, spanning movements in modernism to contemporary practices from across the globe.
