¹ In a handwritten statement that was supplied with the painting upon its sale by E.V Thaw to CMA, Bernard Poissonnier said that he acquired the painting from Paul Eluard. Eluard’s daughter, Cécile, confirmed that her father owned the painting “avant la guerre,” meaning prior to May 1940. While Eluard was likely the painting’s first owner, with neither a firm attribution nor date of execution, Eluard’s years of ownership are difficult to establish. It was previously thought that Eluard exhibited the painting at the Musée du Jeu de Paume in 1937. However, there is no evidence that this exhibition ever took place. The error may derive from confusion with a different exhibition at the Jeu de Paume, Origines et Développement de l’art international indépendant, which included a de Chirico painting titled Intérieur métaphysique from the Eluard collection. The catalogue is not illustrated, but installation photographs indicate it was not the Cleveland painting that was exhibited, and that the catalogue must therefore refer to a different work of the same title. Eluard’s ownership of this work also points to its authorship by, if not de Chirico himself, then someone in his circle, possibly Óscar Domínguez or Max Ernst. Cécile Eluard recalled that Ernst enjoyed executing works in the manner of de Chirico, and it was Ernst who painted the earliest known de Chirico forgery.

² In 1952, the Cleveland picture was exhibited as part of Poissonnier’s collection in the Basel Kunsthalle exhibition, Phantastiche Kunst des XX Jahrhunderts.