Depicts
Guillaume Apollinaire
The poet shown frontally and bare-chested, without details, in the manner Laurencin reached around 1908 — painted during their relationship.
Painting
Portrait de Guillaume Apollinaire
Laurencin's small, frontal portrait of Apollinaire, painted around 1908 during their relationship and bought by the Orangerie at auction in 2019 — the painter's poet, hanging in the collection her dealer built.
- c. 1908
- Oil on cardboard
About Marie Laurencin
What the painting shows
A small oil on cardboard, not much larger than a book. The museum's notice describes its manner plainly: Guillaume Apollinaire shown 'very directly, frontally, bare-chested, without details,' in the characteristic style Laurencin had arrived at around 1908. The museum's record leaves the work undated; its text places it in that Bateau-Lavoir moment, the year after Pablo Picasso introduced the painter and the poet in May 1907.
The painter's poet
Marie Laurencin and Apollinaire were together from 1907 to about 1912, and the group portraits of those years — Group of Artists in Baltimore, Apollinaire et ses amis at the Musée national d'art moderne — always place him at the center of her circle. This little panel is the private version of those public statements: one sitter, no company, no setting.
A 2019 acquisition
The portrait stayed in private hands for a century, most recently in the collection of Geneviève and Jean-Paul Kahn. At the Kahn sale at Drouot on 7 November 2019 — 'Mille nuits de rêve,' by Pierre Bergé & associés — it was bought at auction for the state by the public establishment of the Musée d'Orsay and the Orangerie; La Tribune de l'Art put the price at 35,100 euros. It became the museum's sixth Laurencin, joining the five that came with the Walter-Guillaume collection, and was lent to the Barnes Foundation's Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris in 2023–24.
The purchase closed a circle the collection had left open: Paul Guillaume owed his career to Apollinaire, and the museum built on his collection now holds the poet's portrait by the woman who shared those years with him.
Timeline
c. 1908
Painted during the Bateau-Lavoir years of the Laurencin–Apollinaire relationship, per the museum's reading; the record itself is undated.
2019
Bought for the state at the Kahn collection sale at Drouot, 7 November — the Orangerie's sixth Laurencin.
2023–2024
Lent to Marie Laurencin: Sapphic Paris at the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia.
Frequently asked questions
When did Marie Laurencin paint her portrait of Apollinaire?
The Orangerie's record carries no date; the museum's text reads it as painted in her characteristic manner around 1908, during their relationship. External accounts date it 1908–1909.
How did the portrait come to the Orangerie?
The museum bought it at public auction on 7 November 2019, at the Drouot sale of the Geneviève and Jean-Paul Kahn collection, for a reported €35,100. It is the Orangerie's sixth Laurencin and the only one that did not come with the Walter-Guillaume collection.
What does the portrait look like?
A small oil on cardboard, 28.2 by 20.3 centimeters, showing Apollinaire frontally and bare-chested, without details — closer to an icon than to the group portraits Laurencin painted of their circle.
Where can you see it?
At the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris, in the Walter-Guillaume rooms (the record places it in room 10, level −2). Holdings rotate, so a specific work is never guaranteed to be on view.
In the atlas
Displayed at · 2019
Orangerie des Tuileries
Bought at auction for the museum in November 2019; the record places it in room 10, level −2, beside the collection's other Laurencins. Holdings rotate.
