Le calligraphe (The calligrapher)

Details

René Magritte (1898-1967)
Le calligraphe (The calligrapher)
signed 'Magritte' (lower right); titled (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
12 x 14 3/4 in. (30 x 40 cm.)
Painted in 1958

Provenance

Edgard Goldmuntz, Antwerp.
Anne Alphond, a gift from the above.
Private collection, Brussels, by whom acquired circa 1987.
sale, Christie's, London, 25 June 2002, lot 42.

Literature

Letter from Magritte to Bosmans, 10 January 1959, in R. Magritte, Lettres à André Bosmans 1958-1967, Paris, 1990, pp. 24-25.
D. Sylvester, René Magritte, Catalogue raisonné, vol. III, Oil Paintings, Objects and Bronzes 1949-1967, London, 1993, no. 891, p. 301 (illustrated).

Special Notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Sale Room Notice

Please note the correct dimensions for this work are 11? x 15? in. (30.3 x 40.2 cm.)

Please note the additional exhibition reference for this lot:
New York, Tony Shafrazi Gallery, René Magritte, Robert Williams, David LaChapelle, January - April 2005.

Brought to you by

Giovanna Bertazzoni

gbertazzoni@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2542

Lot Essay

‘The act of painting is performed in order that poetry appears and not in order to reduce the world to a variety of its material aspects.
Poetry does not forget the mystery of the world: it is not just a means of evasion nor food for the imagination, it is presence of mind.’
(R. Magritte in Rhétorique, June 1963).

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