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拍品专文
The Comité Marc Chagall has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
In 1930, Ambroise Vollard commissioned Chagall to produce a series of illustrations of the Bible. At this time, Chagall was finalizing the last etchings for Fontaine's Fables, a project also initiated by Vollard, but he wanted the artist to start on a new book right away. In order to prepare for this next endeavor, Chagall traveled with his wife and daughter to the Holy Land in early 1931. They visited Alexandria, Cairo and the Pyramids. From Beirut they traveled to Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem. While in Jerusalem, Chagall rejoiced in painting the interiors of synagogues and the Wailing Wall, and spent a lot of time outdoors capturing the surrounding scenery. As Franz Meyer has explained, “Chagall was…greatly impressed by the landscape and often worked out-of-doors under the cacti on the rocky hills, buffeted by the boisterous khamsin that tore the canvas from his easel” (op. cit., p. 385).
La tombe de Rachel was one such work painted en plein air, a practice which was unusual for the artist, but necessary as he sought to get a firm measure of this unknown land. The ruddy tint of the small domed structure which is revered as the burial place of the matriarch Rachel is juxtaposed against the verdant hills of the surrounding landscape. The picture is infused with a new light, brighter than any depicted in Chagall’s work to this date. However, it still shares a somber clarity and precision and the melancholy undertones of the works depicting Vitebsk in 1914-1915. In both cases, Chagall was confronting new places, which had either been long dreamed-of or long-missed. As Edmond Fleg, a writer who the Chagall family traveled with during this time, recalled, “as he painted, he pointed with his brush to the cactus, towers, and cupolas of Jerusalem and cried out that there was no longer a Vitebsk” (J. Wullschlager, Chagall: A Biography, New York, 2008, p. 349).
Upon his return to France following this transformational trip, Chagall worked on the Bible etchings for several years, fastidiously creating as many as twelve states for each illustration. In January 1934, due to the Depression, Vollard had to suspend the project. Five years later, he passed away and Chagall stopped working on the remaining plates. In 1952, Vollard’s heir, the publisher Tériade, approached the artist to complete the series and The Bible was published in 1957. The etching for La tombe de Rachel was directly based upon the present painting which Chagall had made decades earlier in the hills of Jerusalem. Chagall told Jacques Lassaigne that Palestine gave him “the most vivid impression he had ever received” (ibid.). Rather than promote the exotic, as Eugène Delacroix and Henri Matisse had done in North Africa, he was searching for an inner authorization in order to inform his illustrations. La tombe de Rachel is a remarkable example of the artist’s first encounter with a new, but sacredly held, world.
In 1930, Ambroise Vollard commissioned Chagall to produce a series of illustrations of the Bible. At this time, Chagall was finalizing the last etchings for Fontaine's Fables, a project also initiated by Vollard, but he wanted the artist to start on a new book right away. In order to prepare for this next endeavor, Chagall traveled with his wife and daughter to the Holy Land in early 1931. They visited Alexandria, Cairo and the Pyramids. From Beirut they traveled to Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem. While in Jerusalem, Chagall rejoiced in painting the interiors of synagogues and the Wailing Wall, and spent a lot of time outdoors capturing the surrounding scenery. As Franz Meyer has explained, “Chagall was…greatly impressed by the landscape and often worked out-of-doors under the cacti on the rocky hills, buffeted by the boisterous khamsin that tore the canvas from his easel” (op. cit., p. 385).
La tombe de Rachel was one such work painted en plein air, a practice which was unusual for the artist, but necessary as he sought to get a firm measure of this unknown land. The ruddy tint of the small domed structure which is revered as the burial place of the matriarch Rachel is juxtaposed against the verdant hills of the surrounding landscape. The picture is infused with a new light, brighter than any depicted in Chagall’s work to this date. However, it still shares a somber clarity and precision and the melancholy undertones of the works depicting Vitebsk in 1914-1915. In both cases, Chagall was confronting new places, which had either been long dreamed-of or long-missed. As Edmond Fleg, a writer who the Chagall family traveled with during this time, recalled, “as he painted, he pointed with his brush to the cactus, towers, and cupolas of Jerusalem and cried out that there was no longer a Vitebsk” (J. Wullschlager, Chagall: A Biography, New York, 2008, p. 349).
Upon his return to France following this transformational trip, Chagall worked on the Bible etchings for several years, fastidiously creating as many as twelve states for each illustration. In January 1934, due to the Depression, Vollard had to suspend the project. Five years later, he passed away and Chagall stopped working on the remaining plates. In 1952, Vollard’s heir, the publisher Tériade, approached the artist to complete the series and The Bible was published in 1957. The etching for La tombe de Rachel was directly based upon the present painting which Chagall had made decades earlier in the hills of Jerusalem. Chagall told Jacques Lassaigne that Palestine gave him “the most vivid impression he had ever received” (ibid.). Rather than promote the exotic, as Eugène Delacroix and Henri Matisse had done in North Africa, he was searching for an inner authorization in order to inform his illustrations. La tombe de Rachel is a remarkable example of the artist’s first encounter with a new, but sacredly held, world.