Georges Braque Artwork Details

 

 

Detailed Description

Note: The piece is dedicated “Pour Madame Valery”. Almost certainly this lady was the wife of the famous writer and intellectual, Paul Valery (1871 - 1945) (see also www.paulvalery.org) who was a great friend of Braque, Picasso and many other members of the “School of Paris” . Paul Valery was born of a Corsican father and Genoese mother in Sète, a town on the Mediterranean coast of the Hérault. Though his earliest publications date from his mid-twenties, Valéry did not become a full-time writer until 1920. After his election to the Académie française in 1925, Valéry became a tireless public speaker and intellectual figure in French society, touring Europe and giving lectures on cultural and social issues as well as assuming a number of official positions eagerly offered to him by an admiring French nation. He represented France on cultural matters at the League of Nations, and he served on several of its committees. The Outlook for Intelligence (1989) contains English translations of a dozen essays resulting from these activities. During World War II the Vichy regime stripped him of some of these jobs and distinctions because of his quiet refusal to collaborate with Vichy and the German occupation, but Valéry continued, throughout these troubled years, to publish and to be active in French cultural life, especially as a member of the Académie française. In 1900, he married Jeannie Gobillard, a friend of Stéphane Mallarmé's family, who was also a niece of the painter, Berthe Morisot. The wedding was a double ceremony in which the bride's cousin, Morisot's daughter, Julie Manet, married the painter, Ernest Rouart. Valéry and Gobillard had three children: Claude, Agathe, and François. Size: 120 x 80 mms (Paper size) Condition: Minor toning otherwise in good condition. Authentication: We have no documentation to prove this is authentic. However the signature, style and composition of the work seem absolutely correct and similar to pieces of known authenticity and provenance which we have seen.