(1926) Ethiopian Queen
Toyen

Popis

Drawing ink on the paper (1926), 16×11 cm (without frame), signed Toyen 1926 in the right lower corner, framed.
Origin: Auction House Prague
On the back side there is the confirmation that the drawing is the work of Toyen´s own hands and that it was a template for an illustration – stamp and signature of PhDr. František Dvořák 1998.
Similar drawings are known from so called Sketchbook, 1925, private collection Paris.
The same theme is on the picture Paradise of the Black People, 1925, private collection Paris (published in the monograph of Karel Srp, Toyen, Argo, 2000, page 32)

Exhibited at the exhibition “CZECHOSLOVAKIA – Tribute to a non-existing country”, Czech Centre, Paris, 2016
The highest achieved price for Toyen´s work (oil on canvas) in the foreign auction sale – 700 thousand €, May 2016, Auction House Thierry-Lannon & Associés in Brest

The highest price achieved in the home auction sale – 36 million CZK in 2017, Galerie Kodl
http://www.ceskagrafika.cz/detail.php?id_dila=3110&id_kategorie=1&id_umelce=112
The highest price achieved in the home auction sale for print – 216 thousand CZK in 2012, Galerie Kodl
The highest price achieved in the home auction sale for drawing – 1.1 million CZK in 2009

Toyen travelled to France for the first time with Jindřich Štyrský in the years 1924 and 1925. On these journeys the Sketchbook came to existence which is now in a private collection in Paris. The drawings were being created right in the middle of the travelling when the author was encountering various exotic circuses, celebrations, funfairs and carnivals. She was transforming her experience into the as if naive and childishly simple drawing, which was her way of reaction to the proletarian program of the Devětsil Group and its theory of changing the working day into a holiday. The atmosphere of Paris, bohemian life and encounters with multi-coloured population inspired Toyen to many erotic scenes embedded into exotic places, which culminated in the picture Paradise of the Black People presenting collective joyful copulation under the palm trees. The openness of the Author in the erotic scenes looks sensual and relaxed and is much more believable than in the erotic works of her male colleagues.
The main figure of the drawing is the black queen resting on her back who is being served by other blacks – they fan her or play the harp. More of them are achieving peaks of the palm trees in the background by climbing. This scene contains erotica in a hidden way only and is some kind of a silent initial to more orgies known from the Paradise of the Black People.
Given the confirmation of the authenticity of the drawing by František Dvořák, this drawing was acquired in the nineties from the private collection in Paris to the Czech auction market.

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