La Bouteille d’Anís del Mono

Gris made this in 1914, the year the First World War broke out and left him, a Spaniard in Paris, suddenly a foreigner of uncertain status. He built the picture partly from real things, gluing on the actual paper label of an anisette bottle, a popular Spanish brand called Anís del Mono. Look closely and there is a small joke with a sharp edge. He trimmed the label word 'Anisado' down to 'Visado', the Spanish for a visa, the permit a foreigner now needed. On the bottle two medals face each other, one awarded in Paris and one in Madrid, his adopted city set against the city of his birth. He spent the war years in France, unable to easily go home.