White Cat; & Kitten, blue and gold background

The production of Lap was discovered out ofchance in the early 1920s by Spéranza Calo-Séailles (1885-1949). According to the story passed down in the family, Calo-Séailles,a Greek mezzo-soprano opera singer whomoved to Paris in 1908, accidentally left some cement to dry in a tub where she would clean her paintbrushes. The next day, when she took the dried cement out, she noticed that the surface was covered in a shiny crystallised layer of pigment. Curious to see where she could take this innovation, she collaborated with her husband Jean Séailles to perfect the technique. Excited with the outcome, she showed the panels to Leonard-TsuguharuFoujita, whom she met in 1914 and immediately became friends, occasionally supporting him financially. He gave her some animal drawings, which she traced with pigments then covered with cement, and for many years, theycollaborated to create beautiful Lap panels.From then on, the technique would developvery rapidly. More expensive than marble,colourfully flamboyant, Lap would continueto be used in luxurious settings to decorate interior walls and exterior building facades all throughout the 1920s. The infinite number of decorative possibilities and the unpredictable nature of the crystallisation process makes each Lap panel a unique artwork.The four works sold as two lots in this sale come directly from the heirs of Speranza Calo-Seailles, who kept them preciously in their private collection, occasionally lending some to museums, like the Musée Maillol in Paris in 2018.