Still Life with Ball Bearing

Léger liked to say that a well-made machine part could be as beautiful as a nude or a flower, and here he proves the point with a ball bearing, the humble ring of steel balls that lets a wheel spin. He sets it down among a few flat shapes and paints it with the care usually spent on a face. The idea caught on beyond painting. A young furniture designer, Charlotte Perriand, was so taken with Léger's machine-part pictures that she strung herself a necklace out of chromed ball bearings and wore it as a badge of the machine age. The steel ring in this canvas gleams like jewellery too, sitting at the centre as calmly as a bowl of fruit in an older still life.