85 - Marie VASSILIEFF (1884–1957)

Marie VASSILIEFF (1884–1957) Portrait of the musician Claude Dubosq (1897–1938) Mixed media, collage, and aluminum. Signed in the middle right. Bears pencil inscriptions on the back of the mounting: “Claude Vivant, Claude Dubosq, brilliant, musician, ...” 13.2 x 8.2 cm (minor wear, creases, old trace of yellow tape in the lower left corner) The relationship between the painter Marie Vassilieff and the composer and poet Claude Duboscq was one of the most deeply bonded artistic and spiritual friendships of the 1920s avant-garde. Born of an instant aesthetic connection in the Montparnasse studio, their collaboration reached its peak in 1927 with the ballet “Avant-Pendant-Après,” for which Duboscq composed the music and Vassilieff designed the sets and costumes. Duboscq’s tragic suicide in 1938 left Marie Vassilieff devastated. She dedicated several posthumous works to him, including her famous painting “The Flutist,” which she kept close by in her studio until her death, and our portrait, rendered in the style of an icon. Marie Vassilieff wrote in her memoirs about “The Flutist”: “I kept for myself the recent painting I created in memory of this wonderful man, depicting his mask playing the flute, framed by heads from another world. Claude Duboscq’s death deeply devastated me.” (M. Vassilieff, *La Bohème du XXe siècle*, typescript—Claude Bernès archives, p. 221). Expert: Cabinet Chanoit