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Lot Essay
This work is sold with a photo-certificate from the Comité Marc Chagall.
First explored by Chagall in the early 1920s as a romantic extension to the symbolic vocabulary of the paintings depicting himself with his beloved wife Bella, the vase of flowers became a perennial theme in Chagall's art. During his marriage to Bella, the artist executed countless works of this genre to express his exuberance over the blissful state of their union. In the years following the passing of his beloved muse and throughout his second marriage to Valentina "Vava" Brodsky beginning in 1952, this genre continued to provide a means for the painter to express sentiments of contentment as well as reflecting upon the ephemeral nature of life.
The canvases and works on paper were nearly always marked by a wild proliferation of vivid blooms emanating from a central basket or vase, as seen in the present lot. The explosion of colour that so often characterises his bouquets allows Chagall to manipulate dramatic contrasts and subtle harmonies with aplomb, so typical of the richness of his palette. Also emerging from the background are some other familiar elements of Chagall's aesthetic dream-like repertory; the family table underneath the vase and the seemingly floating figures towards the upper edge of the composition.
'It was in Toulon in 1924, Chagall recalls, that the charm of French flowers first struck him. He claims he had not known bouquets of flowers in Russia - or at least they were not so common as in France... He said that when he painted a bouquet it was as if he was painting a landscape. It represented France to him. But the discovery was also a logical one in the light of the change taking place in his vision and pictorial interests. Flowers, especially mixed bouquets of tiny blossoms, offer a variety of delicate colour combinations and a fund of texture contrasts which were beginning to hold Chagall's attention more and more' (J.J. Sweeney, Marc Chagall, New York, 1946, p. 56).
First explored by Chagall in the early 1920s as a romantic extension to the symbolic vocabulary of the paintings depicting himself with his beloved wife Bella, the vase of flowers became a perennial theme in Chagall's art. During his marriage to Bella, the artist executed countless works of this genre to express his exuberance over the blissful state of their union. In the years following the passing of his beloved muse and throughout his second marriage to Valentina "Vava" Brodsky beginning in 1952, this genre continued to provide a means for the painter to express sentiments of contentment as well as reflecting upon the ephemeral nature of life.
The canvases and works on paper were nearly always marked by a wild proliferation of vivid blooms emanating from a central basket or vase, as seen in the present lot. The explosion of colour that so often characterises his bouquets allows Chagall to manipulate dramatic contrasts and subtle harmonies with aplomb, so typical of the richness of his palette. Also emerging from the background are some other familiar elements of Chagall's aesthetic dream-like repertory; the family table underneath the vase and the seemingly floating figures towards the upper edge of the composition.
'It was in Toulon in 1924, Chagall recalls, that the charm of French flowers first struck him. He claims he had not known bouquets of flowers in Russia - or at least they were not so common as in France... He said that when he painted a bouquet it was as if he was painting a landscape. It represented France to him. But the discovery was also a logical one in the light of the change taking place in his vision and pictorial interests. Flowers, especially mixed bouquets of tiny blossoms, offer a variety of delicate colour combinations and a fund of texture contrasts which were beginning to hold Chagall's attention more and more' (J.J. Sweeney, Marc Chagall, New York, 1946, p. 56).