Pierrot au Bouquet. Um 1947.
Oil on paper on canvas.
With a stamp “Atelier de Georges Rouault” and the signature of Isabelle Rouault on the reverse of the canvas. Twice titled by Isabelle Rouault on the stretcher and on the adhesive paper tape, as well as twice inscribed with the dimensions and the technique, and once with the archive number “V 120”. 25.5 x 19.4 cm (10 x 7.6 in). [CH].


• Pierrot and clown are recurrent motifs in Rouault's œuvre, as numerous famous paintings and graphic works the artist made since the turn of the century demonstrate.
• In this work, Rouault dissolves figure and space in a vibrant coloring and a flickering, impasto application of the paint that is so characteristic of his late period.
• Rouault enjoyed great success after World War II: in 1945, the Museum of Modern Art in New York honored the artist with a comprehensive retrospective, followed by further retrospective exhibitions at the Kunsthaus Zürich (1948), the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1952), as well as a traveling exhibition in the United States and Japan (1953).
• Works from this series can be found in the most important museum collections worldwide, including the Albertina in Vienna, the Centre Pompidou / Musée national d'art moderne, Paris, the Kunsthaus Zürich, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Accompanied by a photo expertise issued by Isabelle Rouault.

PROVENANCE: Private collection Baden-Württemberg.
Private collection Baden-Württemberg (acquired from the above in 1999).

"I have seen clearly that the 'clown' was I, was us, almost all of us.. We are all clowns to a greater or lesser extent.. Who would then dare say that he has not been overwhelmed, down to the pit of his stomach, by an immense pity?"
Georges Rouault in a letter to Edouard Schuré, quoted from: Fabrice Hergott, Barcelona 1992, p. 15.