
Wikimedia Commons • Public Domain
Robert Delaunay rendered this In the Garden (Dans le jardin) in 1904, when he was just 19 years old. The oil on canvas measures 71.8 x 56.4 cm and shows a table set with bread and coffee in a blooming garden along a sun-dappled path. It's signed and dated "Robert Delaunay 04" in the lower right corner.
This early work shows Delaunay still working under the influence of Impressionism, before he developed the abstract, color-focused style called Orphism that would make him famous. The handling of light through leaves and the domestic subject matter connect him to earlier French painting traditions. There's no hint yet of the fragmented color wheels and Eiffel Tower abstractions to come.
The painting was acquired by collectors Iris and B. Gerald Cantor before 1986, then gifted to the Brooklyn Museum that same year. It represents a rare glimpse of a major abstract pioneer working in a representational mode.
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Juan Gris, 1912
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