Conceived in 1914, Harlequin belongs to the pivotal moment when Jacques Lipchitz left his academic training behind and began translating Cubism into three dimensions. The commedia dell’arte clown is reduced to a stack of interlocking geometric planes. He is identified by the attributes Lipchitz gave all his harlequins: a jaunty bicorne hat, a pleated ruff framing the face, and a row of stepped, diamond-cut buttons running diagonally down the costume. A single drilled eye and a crescent smile animate the head. The torso is built of flat, slab-like volumes that turn and overlap as the viewer circles the figure, and a small incised star on the hip is the only other ornament. The composition ends in a firm, planted stance on a circular plinth. From behind, the figure resolves into an almost abstract silhouette of curved and straight edges. This early example of the sculptor’s interest in reading a form from every angle would define his Cubist work over the next decade. The deep black patina is even and well preserved, and it sharpens every edge and facet.

About the Artist
Born in Druskininkai, Lithuania, in 1891, Jacques Lipchitz moved to Paris in 1909 to study at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian. His meeting with Pablo Picasso in 1913 led him to abandon the classical figure. He became one of the first sculptors to bring Cubist principles into three dimensions, and in time he was the movement’s leading sculptor. Harlequins and Pierrots were common subjects among Cubist painters, but Lipchitz was one of the few to realize them successfully in sculpture. He returned to the Harlequin throughout the following decade, with the clarinet, the accordion and the mandolin. This 1914 figure stands at the beginning of that series. Lipchitz fled occupied France for the United States in 1941 and continued working there until his death in 1973. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Tate, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museo Reina Sofía, among others.
About the Foundry
Roman Bronze Works was founded in Brooklyn in 1897 by the Genoese chemical engineer Riccardo Bertelli. It was the first American foundry to specialize in lost-wax casting and became the country’s leading art foundry, casting work by nearly every major American sculptor active between 1900 and 1950, including Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell. In 1946 the foundry passed to Salvatore Schiavo, whose father had worked there since 1902. The Schiavo family maintained a personal friendship with Lipchitz, who gave one of his works directly to Salvatore Schiavo.