Nature morte, or Compotier et cruche décorée de cerfs, is a Cubist painting by the French artist Jean Metzinger. It was exhibited at Exposició d'Art Cubista, Galeries Dalmau, Barcelona, 20 April – 10 May 1912. During this show—the first exhibition of Cubism in Spain—Metzinger's painting became one of the preferred targets of the press. It was exhibited again 1 – 15 April 1917 at Nya Konstgalleriet founded by the Italian Futurist Arturo Ciacelli in Stockholm. Nya Konstgalleriet was one of the three main galleries in Sweden responsible for promoting national and international modernism between 1915 and 1925. The painting would eventually be exhibited at Galerie Philippe Reichenbach, Houston, where it was acquired in 1960. In 2008 Nature morte was auctioned at Sotheby's in New York.
Nature morte (Metzinger)
Jean Metzinger, c.1911, Nature morte (Compotier et cruche décorée de cerfs); Juan Gris, 1911, Study for Man in a Café; Marie Laurencin, c.1911, Testa ab plechs; August Agero, sculpture, Bust; Juan Gris, 1912, Guitar and Glasses, or Banjo and Glasses. Published in Veu de Catalunya, 25 April 1912
Jean Metzinger, Nature morte (Compotier et cruche décorée de cerfs), published in Nya Konstgalleriet, exhibition catalogue, 1–15 April 1917
Paintings by Albert Gleizes, 1910-11, Paysage, Landscape; Juan Gris (drawing); Jean Metzinger, c.1911, Nature morte, Compotier et cruche décorée de cerfs. Published on the front page of El Correo Catalán, 25 April 1912
Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger was a major 20th-century French painter, theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote the first theoretical work on Cubism. His earliest works, from 1900 to 1904, were influenced by the neo-Impressionism of Georges Seurat and Henri-Edmond Cross. Between 1904 and 1907, Metzinger worked in the Divisionist and Fauvist styles with a strong Cézannian component, leading to some of the first proto-Cubist works.
Metzinger, before 1913
Jean Metzinger, 1912, Danseuse au café (Dancer in a café), oil on canvas, 146.1 x 114.3 cm, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York. Published in Au Salon d'Automne "Les Indépendants" 1912, Exhibited at the 1912 Salon d'Automne
Jean Metzinger, c.1905, Baigneuses, Deux nus dans un jardin exotique (Two Nudes in an Exotic Landscape), oil on canvas, 116 x 88.8 cm, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
Jean Metzinger, ca. 1906, Coucher de Soleil No. 1 (Landscape), oil on canvas, 72.5 x 100 cm, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands