The presented work is one of the preparatory studies for the painting "Portrait of Mrs. Dale", the wife of stockbroker Chester Dale. Already in the preparatory drawings for the portrait, the linear-plastic organization of the image interested the artist more than the features of a model. Mrs. Dale, being a well-educated woman, she involved her husband in art collecting, and by the mid-1920s, the Dale couple had collected one of the largest and most important collections of contemporary art in the United States.

Catalogue raisonne: Dora Vallier, Carnet Inédit de Fernand Léger, Esquisses pour un Portrait. Paris, 1952. 

Provenance

Estate of the artist

Musée National Fernand Léger, Biot 

Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, 1996
Gianni Versace, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Private collection (sold: Sotheby's, Paris, 2018) 

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Exhibited - Berlin, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Fernand Léger 1881-1955.