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Pears and Grapes on a Table
Juan Gris
Céret, autumn 1913
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Morin et Janet

The artist supply shop Morin et Janet, whose stamp appears on the stretcher of Gris's Pears and Grapes on a Table (1913) was located at 5, rue Lepic, in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris. The shop, initially run by Eugène Morin, was just a five-minute walk from the Bateau-Lavoir (13, rue Ravignan), the cluster of artists' studios that was for a time home to both Gris and Picasso. The two artists frequented the shop; for example, it is known that on April 4, 1911, Picasso purchased fourteen oval canvases of varying dimensions from "Morin."

In 1909, Morin and J. Janet filed a patent (no. 412265) for a new red color they were jointly developing. Their synthetic pigment, consisting of a mixture of cadmium sulfide and selenium, was announced in Le Moniteur Scientifique du Docteur Quesneville in 1912.

For more information, see:

Cowling, Elizabeth. Picasso: Sculptor/Painter. Exh. cat. London: Tate Gallery, 1994. 

"Revue des Brevets: Brevets pris à Paris." Le Moniteur Scientifique du Docteur Quesneville 2, no. 5.1 (1912): 16.

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