Eugène Berman

The Jug on the Window

1934

Not on display

Artist: Eugène Berman 1899–1972
Original title: La Cruche sur la fenêtre
Medium: Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 810 × 600 mm
frame: 957 × 748 × 65 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Presented by Arthur Jeffress 1960
Reference: T00334

Catalogue entry

Eugène Berman 1899-1972

T00334 La Cruche sur la Fenêtre (The Jug on the Window) 1934

Inscribed 'E. Berman | Paris Juin-Septembre 1934 | La cruche sur la fenêtre' on back of canvas
Oil on canvas, 31 7/8 x 23 5/8 (81 x 60)
Presented by Arthur Jeffress 1960
Prov: Through Julien Levy Gallery, New York; James Thrall Soby, New York, 1934; through Julien Levy Gallery, New York; Arthur Jeffress, New York and London, 1936
Exh: French Pictures from the Collection of Mr Arthur Jeffress, Southampton Art Gallery, August-September 1946 (12); on loan to Southampton Art Gallery, November 1947-September 1948; Modern French Masters, Hanover Gallery, London, December 1948-January 1949 (2)
Lit: James Thrall Soby, After Picasso (Hartford-New York 1935), p.44, repr. pl.24; Julien Levy, Eugène Berman (New York-London 1947), pp.viii-ix

The artist wrote that this picture is connected with a series of paintings inspired by a short visit to Les Baux in Provence in the summer of 1933. He made many notes and sketches on the spot, some of which helped him with the composition of the Les Baux series, which was painted in his studio in Paris in 1934. [The present work is inscribed on the back 'Paris June-September 1934']. However, most of the compositions were rather freely re-invented and this happened in the present case (letter of 13 June 1960).

Les Baux is a ruined medieval town six miles from Arles, set in a fantastic landscape of stony desert and inhabited at that time mainly by a band of poverty-stricken peasants.

Published in:
Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.50, reproduced p.50