Grande potiche à fond blanc au décor bleu et jaune

Born in Narbonne on July 25, 1875, François Pierre Coffinhal-Laprade came from a bourgeois and cultured background. The son of the public prosecutor Raymond Coffinhal-Laprade, Pierre Laprade attended Antoine Bourdelle's studio from 1896 onwards and, although he was destined to be a magistrate, the sculptor encouraged him in his artistic path. He entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris but did not stay there, preferring to work alone. In 1900, Ambroise Vollard bought his first work. That same year, at the Eugène Carrière Academy, Laprade met Henri Matisse and the future Fauves, with whom he exhibited in 1905 at the Salon d'automne. He participated in the 1901 Salon des Indépendants and had a private exhibition at Ambroise Vollard. He worked with the ceramist André Metthey (1871-1920) and drew lithographs for an edition of Manon Lescaut by Eugène Druet.