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Lot Essay
The Comité Marc Chagall has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Chagall painted La Bastille as part of his “Paris Series,” a group of more than thirty works that he conceived in February 1952, and executed over the course of the next two years. A selection of twenty-nine of these pictures was exhibited at Galerie Maeght in June 1954. He based many of these views on drawings he made as he walked the boulevards and streets of a city he had known since he was a young man; he also returned to sketches he made in colored chalks and pastels while on a three-month sojourn in Paris during the spring of 1946, the first of several visits he made to France as he considered relocating from America, where he had spent his wartime exile. Following his permanent return in 1948 Chagall eventually settled in Vence, a town in the Midi. He continued to use his daughter Ida's home in Paris as a base and was a frequent visitor to the capital for exhibitions and other activities.
The views in the “Paris Series,” as Franz Meyer has written, “blend under a magic veil of color with the dance of lovers and fabulous creatures” (Marc Chagall, Life and Work, New York, 1964, p. 530). The artist evoked well-known sites in the capital including Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, Bastille, Opéra, Panthéon, Place de la Concorde, St-Germain-des-Prés and the bridges and quays along the Seine. Chagall wrote in the Maeght exhibition catalogue: “Paris, my heart's reflection: I would like to blend with it, not to be alone with myself.” As Jackie Wullschlager has noted, this was “his first exhibition since his marriage to Vava [in 1952], and it demonstrated a new ambition, scale and consistency of vision that had been absent from his work in the decade following Bella's death” (Chagall, A Biography, New York, 2008, p. 483).
The present painting is Chagall's poetic evocation of Paris representing the Colonne de Juillet on the Place de la Bastille, a monumental column commemorating the Revolution of 1830. The composition is dominated by the mysterious red goat, vibrant against the more subdued blue and violet palette of the rest of the composition. It is a mystical creature, as is only suited to this mystical scene. The picture is peopled with various characters, all engaged in some narrative that the viewer can but guess at, possibly recalling memories from the artist's own past or imagined, chance fragments, reflecting other stories. This is a glimpse into a pantheon that is Chagall's own, and yet its magical quality and its open, honest charm are enchanting, inviting us to share in his whimsical dream.
(fig. 1.) The artist on the Quai d'Anjou, Paris, circa 1957.
Chagall painted La Bastille as part of his “Paris Series,” a group of more than thirty works that he conceived in February 1952, and executed over the course of the next two years. A selection of twenty-nine of these pictures was exhibited at Galerie Maeght in June 1954. He based many of these views on drawings he made as he walked the boulevards and streets of a city he had known since he was a young man; he also returned to sketches he made in colored chalks and pastels while on a three-month sojourn in Paris during the spring of 1946, the first of several visits he made to France as he considered relocating from America, where he had spent his wartime exile. Following his permanent return in 1948 Chagall eventually settled in Vence, a town in the Midi. He continued to use his daughter Ida's home in Paris as a base and was a frequent visitor to the capital for exhibitions and other activities.
The views in the “Paris Series,” as Franz Meyer has written, “blend under a magic veil of color with the dance of lovers and fabulous creatures” (Marc Chagall, Life and Work, New York, 1964, p. 530). The artist evoked well-known sites in the capital including Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, Bastille, Opéra, Panthéon, Place de la Concorde, St-Germain-des-Prés and the bridges and quays along the Seine. Chagall wrote in the Maeght exhibition catalogue: “Paris, my heart's reflection: I would like to blend with it, not to be alone with myself.” As Jackie Wullschlager has noted, this was “his first exhibition since his marriage to Vava [in 1952], and it demonstrated a new ambition, scale and consistency of vision that had been absent from his work in the decade following Bella's death” (Chagall, A Biography, New York, 2008, p. 483).
The present painting is Chagall's poetic evocation of Paris representing the Colonne de Juillet on the Place de la Bastille, a monumental column commemorating the Revolution of 1830. The composition is dominated by the mysterious red goat, vibrant against the more subdued blue and violet palette of the rest of the composition. It is a mystical creature, as is only suited to this mystical scene. The picture is peopled with various characters, all engaged in some narrative that the viewer can but guess at, possibly recalling memories from the artist's own past or imagined, chance fragments, reflecting other stories. This is a glimpse into a pantheon that is Chagall's own, and yet its magical quality and its open, honest charm are enchanting, inviting us to share in his whimsical dream.
(fig. 1.) The artist on the Quai d'Anjou, Paris, circa 1957.