In the Circle

Catalogue record

The work is catalogued as In the Circle, made by Wassily Kandinsky around 1914. The dating is given as approximate rather than fixed to a single year, so the object date should be distinguished from any later catalogue, accession or publication date attached to the record. It is classified as abstract art, and the dimensions are recorded as 48.9 cm in height by 48.5 cm in width, an almost exact square.(Wikimedia Commons: In the Circle, n.d., File title and description; Dimensions; Genre)

Interpretation

The square format and the abstract classification together define the terms on which the object is described: the record identifies no depicted figure, scene or subject beyond the abstract play of form, and the near-equal height and width mean the support presents a field without the orientation a rectangular format would impose. The title In the Circle is the only verbal key the catalogue supplies to the composition, naming a shape rather than a narrative. Because the discovery record for the object is not an official museum catalogue, these identifications should be treated as the working description of the work rather than as a definitive catalogue entry.(Wikimedia Commons: In the Circle, n.d., File title and description; Dimensions; Genre)

The work is titled In the Circle and was made by Wassily Kandinsky around 1914.(Wikimedia Commons: In the Circle, n.d.)

The dimensions are 48.9 cm high by 48.5 cm wide.(Wikimedia Commons: In the Circle, n.d.)

The genre is abstract art.(Wikimedia Commons: In the Circle, n.d.)

Documented medium and support

The documented medium of Wassily Kandinsky's In the Circle, made around 1914, is watercolor, gouache, and India ink on paper mounted on board. This description establishes a mixed-media combination rather than a single technique: a transparent water-based wash medium, an opaque water-based body color, and a dark ink, applied to a paper support that was subsequently adhered to a rigid board. The presence of three distinct media is a documentary fact of the object record; it does not by itself specify the order in which the materials were laid down, the relative proportion of each across the surface, or whether any layer was applied over another.(Wikimedia Commons: In the Circle, n.d., Description)

The mounted support is consequential for how the work is understood materially. Paper mounted on board is a composite: the sheet carries the drawing and painting, while the board provides rigidity. The record documents the composite state as the work's medium but does not describe the adhesive, the board type, the paper weight, or whether the mounting was done at the time of making or later. Those details remain unestablished in the supplied evidence and should not be inferred from the visible square format. Technical examination would be required to determine layer order, the distribution of gouache against watercolor, and the application of the India ink relative to the color passages; the record supports the identification of the materials but not a reconstruction of the working sequence.(Wikimedia Commons: In the Circle, n.d., Description)

The medium is watercolor, gouache, and India ink on paper mounted on board.(Wikimedia Commons: In the Circle, n.d.)

In the Circle is recorded as held in the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, under accession number AM 81-65-92. The accession number and the name of the holding institution are the only collection details established by the supplied record. The discovery record consulted for these details is a Wikimedia Commons file page rather than an official museum catalogue, so the collection attribution should be treated as consistent with, but not directly confirmed by, the museum's own documentation. This institutional location matters for the object's place in a larger history of material culture, because the work's entry into a national modern art collection connects a paper-based abstract composition to the public museum narrative of early twentieth-century abstraction. The record does not give an acquisition date, donor, or prior owner, so the route by which the work reached the museum cannot be described from the supplied evidence.(Wikimedia Commons: In the Circle, n.d., Collection and Accession number)

The work is held in the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, with accession number AM 81-65-92.(Wikimedia Commons: In the Circle, n.d.)

The object and its documentation

Interpretation

The supplied record identifies this object as Wassily Kandinsky's In the Circle (Dans le cercle), an abstract work made around 1914 in watercolor, gouache, and India ink on paper mounted on board. Its dimensions are given as 48.9 by 48.5 cm, so the support is very nearly square, and it is held at the Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, under accession number AM 81-65-92. The record classifies the genre simply as abstract art. These identification facts come from a discovery record rather than an official museum catalogue, a distinction that matters for everything below, because no catalogue raisonne entry, gallery label, or institutional file is claimed in the supplied evidence. The mounting of paper onto board is part of the object's physical description and is one of the factors the record treats as relevant to how the work is assessed.(Wikimedia Commons: In the Circle, n.d.)

The working insurance estimate is a constructed figure rather than a reported one. It states a range of US$8M to US$22M and gives its recorded date as a working calculation generated 2026-10-30. The methodology is explicit: a conservative working range calculated for manual review from the confirmed object context, described as a broad reasonableness band for a major museum-held abstract work on paper from Kandinsky's pivotal pre-war period. The band was scaled by medium sensitivity, the mounted support, the approximate 1914 dating, and the public collection status. The record is equally explicit about what it does not use: no public auction estimate, sale result, official insurance value, or private record is claimed or used. This is not an appraisal by a qualified professional and has not been reviewed by one; it does not rely on comparable sales. It is a model-generated working range for manual review only, not an official insurance value, auction estimate, auction result, or sale price, and it notes that public institutional collection status and the supplied identification confidence level may affect actual insurance scheduling, which would require separate professional appraisal and verification.(Wikimedia Commons: In the Circle, n.d.)

The two ends of the range are explained by different pressures. The lower bound reflects what the record calls the greater fragility and market discount typical of works on paper, together with the dating and attribution qualifications noted in the supplied context. The upper bound reflects the artist's canonical standing and the significance of the circa 1914 abstract phase. The mounted support operates in both directions in the record's reasoning: it is listed among the factors scaling the band, and medium sensitivity generally is named as a downward pressure. The stated intention is to keep the range wide to avoid false precision, so the width itself should be read as a methodological choice rather than as evidence of price volatility. The record also states that the supplied context was not independently confirmed through the Centre Pompidou catalogue, which is why the estimate should be treated as provisional even on its own terms.(Wikimedia Commons: In the Circle, n.d.)

Read together, the identification record and the valuation record establish a clear division of labor. The description of medium, dimensions, collection, and accession number is what the working calculation calls the confirmed object context, and that context is the sole input to the range apart from the record's own assumptions about medium, support, dating, and institutional status. The estimate carries no independent evidentiary weight about the work itself: it neither adds to nor corroborates the physical description, and its lower and upper bounds rest on general reasoning about works on paper rather than on any documented transaction. The proper use of such a figure within a research archive is therefore as a dated, attributed, and heavily qualified working document, one that records how a numerical judgment was framed and what it deliberately excluded, not as a value attached to the object.(Wikimedia Commons: In the Circle, n.d.)

Working estimate

Calculated working insurance estimate, not a sale price: Estimated value: US$8M to US$22M Recorded date: Working calculation, generated 2026-10-30. Methodology: Conservative working range calculated for manual review from the confirmed object context: Wassily Kandinsky, In the Circle (Dans le cercle), circa 1914, watercolor, gouache, and India ink on paper mounted on board, 48.9 x 48.5 cm, held at the Musee National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, accession AM 81-65-92. The range is a broad reasonableness band for a major museum-held abstract work on paper from Kandinsky's pivotal pre-war period, scaled by medium sensitivity, the mounted support, the approximate 1914 dating, and the public collection status. No public auction estimate, sale result, official insurance value, or private record is claimed or used. The lower bound reflects the greater fragility and market discount typical of works on paper and the dating and attribution qualifications noted in the supplied context; the upper bound reflects the artist's canonical standing and the significance of the circa 1914 abstract phase. The range is intentionally wide to avoid false precision. Qualification: This is a model-generated working range for manual review only. It is not an official insurance value, appraisal, auction estimate, auction result, or sale price, and it has not been reviewed by a qualified appraiser. It does not rely on comparable sales or private insurance records. Public institutional collection status and the supplied identification confidence level may affect actual insurance scheduling, which requires separate professional appraisal and verification. The supplied context was not independently confirmed through the Centre Pompidou catalogue.(Wikimedia Commons: In the Circle, n.d.)