MAX JACOB (FRENCH, 1876-1944)

Max Jacob was a noted French poet, painter, writer and critic. One of the first friends Pablo Picasso made on arrival in France, he later lived with Picasso on the Boulevard Voltaire. They remained lifelong friends and Picasso immortalised Jacob in Three Musicians (now in the Museum of Modern Art, New York). He was also painted by Amedeo Modigliani in 1916, but most notably by his friend Christopher Wood (now in the Musée des beaux-arts, Quimper). It is likely, that this work showing Ploaré, Brittany, may have been completed with Wood in June 1930, when the two men met (whilst Jacob convalesced following a car-crash in 1929). Shortly before his untimely death in that year Wood completed several landscapes of Ploaré, which show the recognisable church steeple and similar village folk. One interesting example, executed from the small village of Tréboul, where Jacobs was living, was sold Sotheby's, London, 15 November 2011, lot 3. Wood was also a fellow painting companion of Lord Berners and said of him ‘…the only fault I find in his [Lord Berners] work is that it is just too perfect. He does everything as it should be done’, quoted in M. Amory, Lord Berners: the Last Eccentric, London, 1998, p. 108.

We are grateful to Madame S. Lorant Colle for confirming the authenticity of this work.