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Artist or Maker: Robert Delaunay (1885-1941)

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Description: Robert Delaunay (1885-1941)
La ville de Paris (study for La Tour Eiffel)
signed and dated 'Delaunay 1911' (lower right)
pen and India ink on paper
16 3/8 x 12½ in. (41.6 x 31.6 cm.)
Executed in 1911

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Provenance: Sonia Delaunay, Paris, by descent from the artist.
M. Jacques Lassaigne, Paris, a gift from the above in 1952, and thence by descent to the present owner.

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Notes: Richard Riss and Jean Louis Delaunay have confirmed the authenticity of this work.

This rare signed and dated pen and ink drawing is a highly finished study related to Delaunay's series of oil paintings of the city of Paris executed between 1909 and 1911, which are now all held in major museums. The first painting of the series, La Ville , 1909 is in the Tate Gallery, London, the second version, the closest to this drawing, La Fenêtre sur la Ville of 1910-14 (fig. 1) is in the Städtische Kunsthalle, Manhein, and finally La Ville no. 2 has one version in the Georges Pompidou, Paris and the other in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, both of 1910-11. There is also a highly finished watercolour of La Ville in the Philladelphia Museum of Art.

Delaunay's series of oils of La Ville are all based on the same composition: in the foreground the entanglement of the roofs of Paris between the Avenue d'Iéna and the Avenue Kléber viewed from a high point leading to the Eiffel Tower in the background. Delaunay was a believer that progression in painting was achieved by working on variations of the same subject rather than exploring new ones. This was a method that suited him well, as his extensive explorations led him to the creation of his masterpiece, La Ville de Paris (Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris) in 1912.

(fig. 1) R. Delaunay, Fenêtre sur la ville , 1910-14, Stadtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim.