Title: Femme au miroir
Description: Femme au miroir (en. Woman with a Mirror), Femme à sa toilette or Lady at her Dressing Table, is a painting by the French artist Jean Metzinger. This distilled synthetic form of Cubism exemplifies Metzinger's shift, at the outset of 1916, towards less surface activity, with a strong emphasis on larger, flatter, overlapping abstract planes. The manifest primacy of the underlying geometric configuration, rooted in the abstract, controls nearly every element of the composition. The role of color remains primordial, but is now restrained within sharp delineated boundaries in comparison with earlier works. The work of Juan Gris from the summer of 1916 to late 1918 bares much in common with that of Metzinger's late 1915, early 1916 paintings. Painted during the spring of 1916, Femme au miroir formed part of the collection of Léonce Rosenberg, and was probably exhibited at Galerie de L'Effort Moderne in Paris. In 1918, the painting was shipped to New York City for the occasion of the Léonce Rosenberg collection auction. For the same occasion, Femme au miroir was reproduced in the The Sun, New York, Sunday 28 April 1918. The painting was purchased in New York City (at the auction or afterwards) by the American art collector John Quinn, and formed part of his collection until 1927. The work was subsequently featured at The University of Iowa Museum of Art in the Jean Metzinger in Retrospect exhibition, 1985, and reproduced as a full page color plate in the catalogue.
Author(s): Jean Metzinger