by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on September 29, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
About the painting
Small pastel rectangles and dark vertical and horizontal marks spread across this wide 1914 canvas. MoMA identifies it as RKD B45, object 633.1967. Its numbering belongs to Mondrian’s Cubist transition and must not be confused with the 1913 Composition no. VII or the sparse 1922 Tableau 2.[1]
At a glance
- ArtistPiet Mondrian (1872–1944)
- TitleTableau no. 2 / Composition no. V
- Catalogue numberRKD B45
- Date1914
- MediumOil on canvas
- Dimensions54.8 × 85.3 cm
- CollectionThe Museum of Modern Art, New York
- Object number633.1967
Mondrian across periods
Contents
- A possible Paris facade
- Why the date matters
- A documented early buyer
- Following the painting across the surface
- From a facade to an abstraction
- Exhibition and ownership evidence
A possible Paris facade
MoMA's 2024 gallery label explains that the painting is thought to have grown from Mondrian's study of the facade of Notre-Dame-des-Champs near Montparnasse. That origin is a proposal, not a literal subject one can still pick out with certainty. The small pale rectangles overlap and repeat like masonry, but the composition suppresses ordinary depth and a single fixed viewpoint.[1]
 The Red Tree Piet Mondrian.jpg)
The broad format is filled almost edge to edge. A faint grid holds yellow, rose, blue-gray and cream patches. Darker marks give it a sequence of pauses. MoMA notes that one critic compared the work to a “map” or “labyrinth” in March 1914. Those metaphors fit the experience of tracing multiple routes across a surface with no central object.[1]
Why the date matters
Mondrian adopted Cubist methods after encountering the movement in the Netherlands and moving to Paris. In 1914 he was already pushing its fragmented facets towards a flat, repeatable structure. Yet the restricted primary-colour compositions most visitors associate with him were still years away. This canvas retains many muted colour shifts and short broken lines.
MoMA says the painting is thought to have developed from Mondrian's study of the facade of the church of Notre-Dame-des-Champs near Montparnasse. This is a proposed source for the structure, not an identified building still legible in every patch. It helps explain why a contemporary critic's “map” or “labyrinth” comparison could coexist with the artist's move away from a plainly depicted subject.[1]
A documented early buyer
MoMA traces the work to Hendrik van Assendelft, who bought it from the artist at his first solo exhibition in The Hague in 1914. It remained with his widow until at least 1946, passed through dealers and the Janis collection, then entered MoMA in 1967. Its catalogue note explicitly links the painting to B45. The provenance grounds the early date more securely than the generic numbered title does.[1]
Watch: Piet Mondrian
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Piet Mondrian: Abstract Painting as We Know It
Curator Michael White explores the paintings and Mondrian’s studio as an abstract space.
Watch on YouTubeFollowing the painting across the surface
The painting's width matters. At 85.3 centimetres across and 54.8 high, it encourages a lateral reading, yet no single band becomes a horizon. Short dark strokes interrupt the pale patches at different heights. The resulting structure is closer to a set of overlapping routes than to a view through a window. A useful way to look is to follow one dark vertical until it stops, then ask whether a nearby fragment continues it. Mondrian makes continuity a task for the viewer rather than supplying a complete outline.
The subdued colours also prevent any one rectangle from acting as the subject. Rose and yellow are present, but the gray and cream fields keep them in conversation with the whole surface. This is quite unlike the later paintings in which a large primary-colour plane can be read at once from across a room. Here colour, line and spacing operate in many small steps. The analogy to a map recorded in MoMA's label describes that movement of the eye; it does not make the painting a literal plan of Paris.[1]
From a facade to an abstraction
MoMA phrases the Notre-Dame-des-Champs connection cautiously: the work is thought to originate in a study of its facade. That wording matters. A facade can account for the repeated upright and crosswise divisions, but the canvas does not preserve enough architectural detail to identify a doorway, window or exact viewpoint. The proposed source explains a process of transformation, not a hidden picture that every viewer ought to decipher.[1]
The painting belongs to a moment when Mondrian was testing how far a motif could be reduced without losing the relations that made it useful. Facade, tree and scaffold offered different ways to organise verticals and horizontals. In this canvas the shallow plane and near-continuous network take precedence over the building. Comparing it with the 1913 Composition no. VII helps: the Guggenheim picture is associated with a tree and uses a denser central scaffold, whereas B45 spreads smaller coloured units across a wide field. These are distinct experiments, not successive states of the same painting.[1][2]
Exhibition and ownership evidence
The ownership record is unusually informative for an early abstract Mondrian. MoMA says van Assendelft bought B45 among three works at Mondrian's first solo exhibition, held at Kunsthandel W. Walrecht in The Hague in June–July 1914. The work appeared at the Rotterdam Kunstkring in 1915; his widow later lent it to the 1946 Mondrian memorial exhibition in Amsterdam. By 1951 it was with Sidney and Harriet Janis in New York, and MoMA received it as part of their collection in 1967. These dated events establish that the canvas was circulating and recognised long before its present museum setting.[1]
This history also helps with a recurring search problem. Numbered Mondrian titles were reused and translated in different forms. For this particular work, the combination of the 1914 exhibition history, horizontal dimensions, MoMA accession 633.1967 and RKD B45 is stronger identification than the words Tableau no. 2 alone. Readers comparing reproductions should check those identifiers before transferring facts from another similarly titled picture.
MoMA's installation history gives another way to see the painting's changing reception. It identifies the work in photographs from the Janis Collection exhibition of 1968 and later collection displays. Those records document the canvas as an exhibited museum object, although a photograph of a past installation says nothing by itself about where it is hanging today. The current collection page supplies the object record; the exhibition trail shows how the work has been made available to different audiences over time.[1]
The 1914 buyer's story also places abstraction in a live market and exhibition setting. Van Assendelft bought three paintings at the Hague solo presentation, according to MoMA's provenance note. B45 was not merely a private studio experiment later discovered by historians. It was shown and acquired at the time, then lent again in 1915. That does not tell us what every early viewer thought of its facade-like network, but it does give the canvas a documented public life before the mature grids became Mondrian's best-known work.[1]
Mondrian artworks directory
Frequently asked questions
Where is Tableau no. 2 / Composition no. V?
At MoMA, object 633.1967.[1]
What inspired it?
MoMA says it is thought to derive from a study of the facade of Notre-Dame-des-Champs in Paris.[1]
Is it the same as Composition no. VII?
No. Composition no. VII is a separate 1913 Guggenheim painting.[1]
Discussion
Which small patches make a path across the surface?
Reader Insights
Can you find a single stable viewpoint?
How does this differ from the 1913 Composition no. VII?
How does this differ from the 1913 Composition no. VII?
Join the Conversation
Share what you notice in this painting below.
References
- The Museum of Modern Art, Object 633.1967, gallery label and provenance. View source.
- RKD – Netherlands Institute for Art History, Paris 1912–14 catalogue, B45. View source.
- Lead image credit. Piet Mondrian, Tableau no. 2 / Composition no. V, 1914, oil on canvas, 54.8 × 85.3 cm, MoMA 633.1967, RKD B45.
