Kees van Dongen (1877-1968)

Jacques Chalom des Cordes will include this work in his forthcoming Van Dongen catalogue critique being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Institute.


Max et Manolo au restaurant de Louxe is a study for the illustration of the book Au beaux temps de la butte by Roland Dorgelès. Max Jacob, poet, painter, writer, and critic, is at centre, with his eyeglass, and at his right is Manolo, the Spanish sculptor Manuel Martinez Hugué, and a great friend of Picasso when they were both in Paris in the 1900-1910s. Roland Dorgelès, a French novelist, and the author of the book for which this is a study for an illustration, is behind them with the top hat. Le restaurant de Louxe was the former name of the restaurant at the Hôtel Crillon, on the Place de la Concorde in Paris.