Maquette pour la façade du Musée de Biot

Details

Fernand Léger (1881-1955)
Maquette pour la façade du Musée de Biot
signed with the initials 'F.L.' (lower left)
gouache and pencil on paper
14 ¾ x 43 ¼ in. (37.3 x 110 cm.)
Executed in 1952-1954

Provenance

The artist's estate.
Nadia Léger & Georges Bauquier, by descent from the above, and thence by descent.
Private collection, France, by whom acquired from the above in 2005; sale, Sotheby's, Paris, 4 June 2014, lot 33.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

Exhibited

Mons, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Art et sport: De Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Magritte, Hockney aux nouveaux fauves, March - June 1984, no. 18.

Special Notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent. These lots have been imported from outside the EU for sale using a Temporary Import regime. Import VAT is payable (at 5%) on the Hammer price. VAT is also payable (at 20%) on the buyer’s Premium on a VAT inclusive basis. When a buyer of such a lot has registered an EU address but wishes to export the lot or complete the import into another EU country, he must advise Christie's immediately after the auction.

Sale Room Notice

Please note that the full dimensions for the work are:
image: 6 1/8 x 33 1/8 in. (15.3 x 84.3 cm.)
sheet: 14 ¾ x 43 ½ in. (37.3 x 110 cm.)

Brought to you by

Ottavia Marchitelli

omarchitelli@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2980

Lot Essay

The present work is a large, fully elaborated gouache maquette for one of the superb mosaics that cover the building of the Léger Museum in Biot.
At the end of his life, Fernand Léger acquired a property near the village of Biot, near the Côte d’Azur. After his death in 1955, his widow Nadia and their close friend Georges Bauquier decided to create a museum on this site that would pay tribute to the artist’s legacy and raise awareness of his œuvre. The building was designed by the architect Andreï Svetchineand and its façade was crowned with a monumental mosaic celebrating sport, that Léger had recently designed for an aborted project to decorate Hannover stadium. In 1968, the museum was donated to the French State, along with several hundred works of the artist; it is now a National Museum.
Maquette pour la façade du Musée Biot was executed in the early 1950s for the Hannover project and shows the first apparition of the iconic motifs that would eventually adorn the museum that bears his name.

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