''Mandora'' (originally titled ''La Mandore'') is an oil-on-canvas painting by French artist

Georges Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...

, painted in 1909–10. It is in the

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is ...

, in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, which purchased it in 1966. It is acknowledged as a masterpiece of

analytical cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

It presents a string instrument, the

mandora File:Mandora MET DP168838.jpg, 6~9 courses lute (Calchedon, Calichon) (1726)Georg Kinsky: Musikhistorisches Museum von Wilhelm Heyer in Cöln, Bd. 2, Köln 1912, S. 98. File:Gallichon, Muzeum Instrumentów Muzycznych w Pradze.jpg, Gallichon The ...

, and its subject is typical of the Cubist painters interest in the depiction of musical instruments. Braque explained his own interest: "In the first place because I was surrounded by them, and secondly because their plasticity, their volumes, related to my particular concept of still life".''Mandora'' description, Tate Modern
/ref>

References

{{20C-painting-stub 1909 paintings 1910 paintings Paintings by Georges Braque Musical instruments in art Collection of the Tate galleries