Still Life: Le Jour

1929

Georges Braque

Artist, French, 1882 - 1963

A wood table is piled with stylized and abstracted objects, including a jug, lemons, a knife, guitar, newspaper, and a smoking pipe in this horizontal still life painting. The objects are made up of areas of mostly flat color and many are outlined in black, creating the impression that some shapes are two-dimensional and assembled almost like a collage. We look down onto the top of the table and at the front, where the grain of the wood is painted in tan against a lighter background. Concentric black and white circles make up the knob on the face of the table’s single drawer. There are two rows of objects on the table. Along the front, near the left corner of the table, the knife hangs with its blade slightly over the open drawer. A newspaper with the title “LE JOUR” rests next to the knife. Next to the newspaper are two yellow pieces of fruit, near the front right corner of the table. Behind the fruit, the right third of the pitcher is marine blue and the left two thirds is mostly straw yellow, with one round olive-green area near the handle. Next to the pitcher is a tobacco pipe, and, at the back left edge of the table, the guitar. The instrument rests on its side so the front of the soundboard faces the viewer, and the neck extends to our left. The instrument is bisected lengthwise into two halves that appear to be spliced together, and the edges and features of the halves are not symmetrical or aligned with each other. The bottom half of the guitar is painted a beige color, and is curved like a typical guitar body. The top half is painted black, and the contour of the instrument’s body rises into two pointed peaks instead of mirroring the rounded forms below. The sound hole is markedly smaller on the bottom half, and the two halves of the hole do not exactly line up. A rectangular form behind the table could be a screen. The left side is fern green, the right side black. Behind the screen is a wallpapered wall above wood paneling. The wallpaper is patterned with teardrop shapes, dots, and zigzagging lines in fawn brown against parchment white. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner, “G Braque 29.”
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Still Life: Le Jour (English)
View Tour Stop
On View

East Building Ground Level, Gallery 103-B

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Chester Dale Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 115 x 146.7 cm (45 1/4 x 57 3/4 in.)
    framed: 146.4 x 178.4 cm (57 5/8 x 70 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1963.10.91

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Paul Rosenberg and Co., London, New York and Paris); sold 1930 to Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1943

  • Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection, Art Institute of Chicago, 1943-1952 (extended loan), unnumbered catalogue, repro. p. 15

1952

  • Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1952, no. 16, repro.

1965

  • The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.

1978

  • Aspects of Twentieth-Century Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1978-1979, no. 27, repro.

2010

  • From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, January 2010-January 2012, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

1943

  • Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. The Art Institute of Chicago, 1943:, 15, repro.

1952

  • Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1952 (2nd ed., 1960; rev. ed., 1965): 16, repro.

1960

  • Twentieth Century French Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1960 (2nd ed.): 17, repro.

  • The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 6, repro.

1965

  • Twentieth Century French Paintings & Sculpture of the French School in the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965 (rev. ed.): 16, repro.

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 20.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:508, color repro.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 13, repro.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 46, repro.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 598, no. 929, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 68, repro.

1997

  • Mittler, Gene A., and Rosalind Ragans. Understanding Art. New York, 1997: 246, fig. 16-5.

2000

  • Kirsh, Andrea, and Rustin S. Levenson. Seeing Through Paintings: Physical Examination in Art Historical Studies. Materials and Meaning in the Fine Arts 1. New Haven, 2000: 264.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 409, no. 342, color repro.

Inscriptions

lower right: G Braque / 29

Wikidata ID

Q20192795

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