A forgotten work with extraordinary provenance
František Kupka – Garden with Peacocks
The painting Garden with Peacocks (Zahrada s pávy) represents a hitherto unknown work by František Kupka, one of the most important Czech painters and pioneers of modern art.
The painting can be classified as an early period of Kupka’s work, especially in the context of the years 1896–1898.
A connection can be found, for example, with the painting Biblioman from the collections of the Prague Castle or with the painting Rose Bush in Bloom from 1898.
The composition depicts a garden with blooming roses and white peacocks.
It is the motif of white peacocks that gives the painting a distinctly poetic and symbolist character.
Garden with Peacocks thus represents a remarkable evidence of Kupka’s early figurative and symbolically oriented work, even before his later inclination towards abstraction.
The extraordinary significance of the work is also underlined by its provenance.
On the back of the canvas, the original owner’s label has been preserved with the following inscription:
František Kupka / Coll. Dr Stefan Osusky / 17 Av. Charles Floquet / Paris
The painting therefore belonged to the collection of Štefan Osuský, a prominent Czechoslovak politician and diplomat who served as the ambassador of Czechoslovakia in Paris.
Osuský was one of the important figures of the Czechoslovak resistance abroad and moved in an environment where representatives of politics, diplomacy and art met.
It is these connections that make the painting not only an exceptional work of art, but also a valuable document of Czechoslovak cultural history in France.
Garden with Peacocks is an oil on canvas in the original frame measuring 81 × 100 cm.
Full-page color reproduction in Marie Mžyková’s publication Vojtěch Hynais, published by Academia, and in Petr Wittlich’s publication Figura, published by Arbor Vitae.
The painting was accompanied by expert opinions from prominent art historians, including Prof. PhDr. Petr Wittlich, CSc., Assoc. PhDr. Marie Mžyková, CSc., and Prof. PhDr. Tomáš Vlček, CSc.
References
Petr Wittlich – Figura (Arbor Vitae)
Marie Mžyková – Vojtěch Hynais (Academia)
Provenance label: Coll. Dr. Stefan Osusky, Paris
Petr Wittlich – Figura (Arbor Vitae)
