Auguste Herbin (1882-1960)

The present work appears to be a portrait of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, a Swiss music teacher and composer who developed Dalcroze Eurhythmics, or the idea of learning music through movement. According to Kenneth Silver, "the painting is dated 1909, although the suave handling of Cubism evinced here suggests that it may have been painted a few years later—perhaps closer to 1912, the year Herbin showed works with the Cubists at the Section d'Or" (exh. cat., op. cit., 2008, p. 105). Herbin executed another portrait of the composer in 1909 (Claisse, no. 191) in which the faceting of the planes is much less pronounced than in the present work, which translates into a much softer rendering of the subject.