Robert Delaunay’s dynamic geometric style was fundamental to the development of abstraction during the first decade of the twentieth century. Together with his wife Sonia, they pioneered Orphism (the subject of a recent Guggenheim exhibition) with their own rhythmic interpretation of Cubism that harnessed colour, light and movement.

It was the poet Guillaume Apollinaire who first applied the term Orphism to the Delaunay’s’ style, seeing a kinship between the artists and Greek legend Orpheus whose talent on the lyre was so great it was considered a form of true art.

Delaunay’s early works deconstruct land and cityscapes and architectural monuments, most famously the Eiffel Tower. Behind the rainbow in ‘Arc-en-ciel’, the top of the then tallest manmade structure in the world is portrayed jutting into the clouds. The shape of the semi-circular rainbow dominating the scene brings to mind his circular forms series, so important in Delaunay’s oeuvre.

‘Arc-en-ciel’ comes from a 1913 series of works including a larger oil on canvas painting now in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art, Hawaii. The present gouache has an enticing provenance, having been gifted to the press magnate Alfred Edwards and his then wife, Misia Sert, a dazzling figure of the Paris Belle Epoque who was close friends with Coco Chanel and a muse for Bonnard and Vuillard. A legendary figure who was known as the Queen of Paris.