Description:Valse evokes Georges Braque's fond relationship with music and his passion for thematic still lifes. This ceramic plate is one of three he designed and crafted, each with its own unique sensibility.
One of only 3 original Ceramic editions created by Braque, this work was created in 1960, Valse was a result of Braque's desire to experiment with various mediums and materials as part of his creative process. This particular plate is numbered 14 out of 30 in a series created by a technical process which involved covering a plaster support in black, while continuing to etch a drawing into a think layer of color allowing the white plaster beneath to show through.
Braque sought to encompass a subject nearest to his heart: music. In Valse, he depicts a mandolin in the forefront of the piece, obscuring the waltz behind it. He combines two, very polar opposite musical worlds in this composition - the more popular genre including the mandolin versus the bourgeois waltz of the upper class. It is evident which Braque prefers as the waltz is partially obscured by the more accessible mandolin. The plate evokes a playful double meaning in which Braque hoped to convey to his audience, referencing the common subject matter of plates in the genre of still lifes while making the plate itself the medium of the piece. He chooses a circular format as a means of avoiding "dead angles" in the image while incorporating some of his simplified post-Cubist elements and various fragments of texts as his more favored trompe l'oeil device.
Catalogue Raisonné & COA:
It is fully documented and referenced in (copies will be enclosed as added documentation with the invoices that I will accompany the final sale of the work) :
1) Goulandris, Basil & Elise. Braque: Order & Emotion, Andros 2003. Illustrated and documented as cat. no. 93.
2) Masterworks Fine Art, Inc. Certificate of Authenticity accompanies this work.
