Untitled (Two Sailors at a Table)
Two figures in French naval dress sit and stand at a dark red table with two glasses on it. One wears a navy cap with a red pompom and a square sailor collar; the other wears a striped jersey and has an anchor tattooed on the forearm. Green water fills a panel behind them and the wall beside it is papered with small sprigs. Kiki de Montparnasse signed and dated the canvas KiKi 1931 at the lower left. Piasa catalogued it only as Untitled, and the words in brackets are the atlas's description of what is in the picture, not her title.
- 1931
- Oil on canvas
About Kiki de Montparnasse
What the painting shows
One figure sits at the left, leaning forward over the table with the chin dropped onto a bare forearm. That figure wears a dark navy jumper with a pale grey-blue square collar across the shoulders, a striped cuff at the wrist, and a navy cap with a red pompom set back on black hair.
The second figure stands at the right with one hand on the hip and the other arm laid along the first figure's shoulders. That figure wears a white jersey striped in blue, dark blue trousers buttoned at the front, and carries a small dark anchor tattooed on the right forearm.
Both faces are painted the same way: a flat orange ground, blue eyes under arched black brows, rouged cheeks and a red mouth. The sailor in the companion canvas of the same year carries the same face. The dress is naval, the faces are the ones she gives her women, and no catalogue names the sitters.
A table of dark red-brown crosses the lower third. Two tall glasses stand on it, one filled with yellow and one with green, each topped by a pale head. A thin dark object lies to the right of them. The floor below the table is flat red, scored with short dark strokes in pairs and crosses.
Behind the figures a panel of green water runs up the left side, worked in thick curling strokes with white crests. A black iron curve crosses it near the bottom. To the right the wall is pale and papered with small sprigs of green leaves and pink buds. The canvas is 41 by 34 centimetres.
Why the title is in brackets
Piasa catalogued the canvas as Untitled, 1931. A second canvas in the same sale, lot 151, carries exactly the same catalogue title and the same year. Two works cannot share one address in the atlas, so a descriptor was added.
The words in brackets come from the picture and from nothing else. The naval cap with its red pompom, the square collar, the striped jersey and the anchor on the forearm are all visible in the reproduction, and so is the table with its two glasses.
The parenthetical is descriptive. Alice Prin did not title the painting, no catalogue records a title for it, and the atlas does not claim one for her.
Painted the year she last exhibited
Alice Prin — Kiki de Montparnasse was the name Montparnasse gave her — showed her own paintings three times: at the Galerie au Sacre du Printemps in March 1927, then in 1930 and 1931. Billy Klüver and Julie Martin record all three in the standard account of the quarter. She did not exhibit again in her lifetime.
The date at the lower left puts this canvas in the last of those years. Whether it hung in the 1931 show is not recorded, and Piasa's provenance begins with a private collection in Paris.
The handling is what she had been doing since 1927. Outlines are drawn and filled with flat colour, hands are single shapes, and nothing recedes. What is new here is the paint on the sea panel, which is dragged and curled in thick strokes rather than laid flat.
Where it has been
Piasa sold the painting in Paris on 10 June 2026, as lot 150 of Art moderne et surréalisme. The estimate was 8,000 to 12,000 euros and it made 11,808 euros with the buyer's premium.
The house published a condition report with the lot: good overall condition, minor wear along the edges, and minor soiling and splatters. The framed dimensions are given as 52 by 43 centimetres.
Piasa records the provenance as a private collection in Paris. No museum holds it, and no public collection is known to hold any painting by Kiki de Montparnasse.
Close reading
Reading the work, detail by detail
Naval dress, a bar table and a green sea behind. Follow the red pompom on the cap, the square collar and the standing figure's face. Then the water and the ironwork at the left, the striped jersey and the anchor on the forearm. The last two views are the glasses on the table and the signature in the corner.
1.The cap and its pompom
The cap is the flat navy beret of the French navy, and the red pompom on top is the part that names it. It is laid on in thick red paint, the only place in the upper half of the canvas where the surface stands up.
2.The standing figure's face
The face is drawn with blue eyes, plucked arched brows, rouge on both cheeks and a full red mouth. Kiki de Montparnasse paints her women this way throughout, and the sailor in the companion canvas of 1931 has the same face.
3.The square collar
The collar is the square naval one, painted as a single grey-blue shape with two ruled lines along its edge. Under the jumper's cuff a striped undershirt shows at the wrist, which is the same jersey the standing figure wears.
4.The green water
The water is the only passage in the painting built from brushwork rather than from outline and fill. The strokes curl and drag, and white is pulled through them for crests. It stops at a hard edge where the wall begins.
5.The iron curve
A black bar crosses the water near the bottom and a curl of iron hangs below it. Nothing supports either. The bar reads as a rail set in front of the water rather than as part of it.
6.The striped jersey
The stripes are drawn one at a time in blue over cream, and none of them is straight. To the left of the body the wallpaper is printed with a small repeat: two green leaves over a pink curl, dotted across the pale ground.
7.The anchor on the forearm
The anchor is drawn in two strokes on the forearm: a shank with a curved fluke at the foot and a bar across the top. Beside it the trousers carry the round buttons of a sailor's front flap.
8.The two glasses
Both glasses are painted as plain tapering shapes with a pale head at the top. One holds yellow and one holds green, and the green one is scored with white strokes down its length. Nothing else is on the table.
9.The signature
She signed KiKi at the very edge of the canvas, with 1931 under it, so the first letter runs into the left margin. The red floor around it carries long dark strokes laid in pairs and crosses, drawn rather than painted.
Timeline
1927
Kiki de Montparnasse exhibits her own paintings for the first time, at the Galerie au Sacre du Printemps in Paris in March; the show sells out.
1931
Painted, signed and dated at the lower left. She exhibits her paintings for the third and last time in her life.
2026
Sold at Piasa in Paris on 10 June as lot 150, for 11,808 euros with premium against an estimate of 8,000 to 12,000.
Where to see it
A viewing location has not yet been listed for this work.
Frequently asked questions
Does Kiki de Montparnasse's painting have a title?
No. Piasa catalogued it as Untitled, 1931. The words Two Sailors at a Table are the atlas's description of what the canvas shows, added to tell it apart from a second untitled canvas of the same year sold in the same session. Alice Prin did not title it.
What does the painting show?
Two figures in French naval dress at a bar table. One sits with the chin on a forearm, in a navy cap with a red pompom and a square sailor collar. The other stands with a hand on the hip, in a blue and white striped jersey with an anchor tattooed on the forearm. Two glasses stand on the table, one yellow and one green.
Are the two figures men or women?
No catalogue names them. Kiki de Montparnasse paints both faces the way she paints women throughout her work — blue eyes under arched black brows, rouged cheeks and a red mouth. The dress is a sailor's: a naval cap with a red pompom, a square collar, a striped jersey and an anchor tattooed on the forearm.
How big is the painting?
41 by 34 centimetres, oil on canvas, upright. Piasa gives the framed size as 52 by 43 centimetres and records minor wear along the edges with minor soiling and splatters.
How much did it sell for?
11,808 euros including the buyer's premium, at Piasa in Paris on 10 June 2026, against an estimate of 8,000 to 12,000 euros. Her auction record belongs to The Acrobat of 1927, which made 19,275 euros at FauveParis in 2021.
What is behind the two figures?
A panel of green water with white crests, painted in thick curling strokes, with a black iron curve across its lower part. To the right of it the wall is pale and papered with small sprigs of green leaves and pink buds.
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References
The sources below include collection records, catalogues, scholarly research, and primary materials that informed this page. They document Untitled (Two Sailors at a Table), its making, and its place in cultural history.
1Kiki de Montparnasse, Untitled, 1931 — lot 150, Art moderne et surréalisme, 10 June 2026
WebsitePiasa, 2026Used forAuction record for the painting: the catalogue title Untitled, 1931, the medium, dimensions, inscription, provenance, condition report and result.
2Art moderne et surréalisme, 10 June 2026 — sale catalogue and results
WebsitePiasa, 2026Used forThe sale in which lots 150 and 151 were both catalogued as Untitled, 1931.
3Kiki's Paris: Artists and Lovers 1900–1930
BiographyHarry N. Abrams, 1989Used forThe standard account of Montparnasse and of her three exhibitions as a painter, the last of them in 1931.
4Kiki, Reine de Montparnasse — exhibition, 1 April to 30 December 2026
WebsiteMusée du Pays Châtillonnais – Trésor de Vix, Châtillon-sur-Seine, 2026Used forThe 2026 exhibition in her birthplace, which shows her own paintings and drawings alongside the portraits of her.
These references provide the documented foundation for this work's history and interpretation. Claim-level citations remain attached to the specific claims they support.
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