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Bottles and Bowl

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Follow the outline of the tall bottle on the left from its cork to its base, and find the places where the line breaks and steps sideways.

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Gris made this pencil drawing of three bottles and a bowl on a table in 1911, the year after he began to paint seriously. He showed his work for the first time in 1912, at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris and elsewhere. Here the outlines of the bottles break and shift, a first step toward the Cubist idea of showing an object from several sides at once.

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graphite on laid paper · overall: 48 x 31.7 cm · National Gallery of Art · Cubism

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Details and source

Museum title
Bottles and Bowl
Artist
Juan Gris Spanish, 1887 - 1927
Date
1911
Medium
graphite on laid paper
Dimensions
overall: 48 x 31.7 cm (18 7/8 x 12 1/2 in.)
Credit line
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
Image license
CC0 1.0 · Public domain
Museum record
National Gallery of Art

Artist’s life 1887–1927

Cubism c. 1907–1914

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Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.

Bottles and Bowl · Juan Gris, 1911
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Bottles and Bowl, Juan Gris

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