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Dimensions: measurements painted area 352cm. high by 736cm. wide; alternate measurements 11ft 6½in., 24ft 1¾in.

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Provenance: Commissioned for Carol II, King of Romania
Retained by the Dupas family until the 1980s

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Notes: When a fire destroyed the Royal Palace of Bucharest in 1927, levelling all but a staircase, Queen Marie immediately undertook a programme of rebuilding. The work was largely completed during the reign of her son, Carol II, resulting in a vast Neoclassical structure decorated by the finest international designers. Among those commissioned was Jean Dupas, whose famous murals for the French Line's Normandie debuted in 1935. For the palace, Dupas was asked to design and execute the ceiling and archway murals of the Salon de l'Argenterie. Dupas' relationship with the Royal Household was a tempestuous one, however, and work progressed slowly. A dispute over the terms of payment meant that the artist took up an important commission in Bordeaux rather than proceed with the Bucharest ceiling; as a result, he was far from finished when the physical building was completed in 1937. Though a full-colour model of the entire scheme existed, by 1940 only a portion of the work, presumably including this archway, had been completed. Dupas was still negotiating as late as February of that year, but the German invasion of France in May, followed by the abdication of Carol II in September, meant that the commission went permanently unfulfilled. The palace itself was badly damaged by bombing in August 1944, and though later rebuilt, the Dupas mural remained with the artist's family. From a photograph of the sketches intended for one end of the Salon de l'Argenterie it is evident that Dupas intended to incorporate the Zodiac symbols and the Chariot of Dawn to which Arthur Lorenz, of the buildings division of the Royal Household, had referred in a letter of 9 August 1935. Nor had he neglected Lorenz's instruction to not forget the 'personnages modernes qui... feront un effet vraiment charmant.' Originally Aries and Taurus were to have appeared above an arch to the right, with Cancer evident in this central mural, and Leo and Virgo in another section to the left. The horses leaping above the great central arch are presumably those of Dawn, who appears to have been placed near the centre of the ceiling. This lot will include a portfolio containing photographs of large-scale rough sketches pasted either in situ or in a maquette, along with photocopies of correspondence between Dupas and the Royal Household.