Lot 383
  • 383

René Magritte

Estimate
250,000 - 350,000 GBP
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Description

  • René Magritte
  • LE PALAIS DE RIDEAUX II
  • signed Magritte (upper right); titled on the reverse
  • oil on canvas
  • 73 by 54cm., 28 3/4 by 21 1/4 in.

Provenance

Galerie L'Epoque (Paul Gustave Van Hecke), Brussels (acquired in 1928)
E. L. T. Messens, Brussels (acquired circa 1932-33)
Harold Diamond, New York (acquired from the above circa 1959-60)
Mr & Mrs Kenneth Newberger, Chicago (acquired from the above)
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (a gift from the above in the 1980s)
Marianne Holtermann, London (acquired from the above)
Galerie Beyeler, Basel (acquired from the above in 1987)
Chalk and Vermilion Fine Art, Greenwich, Connecticut
Private Collection, Greenwich, Connecticut
Sale: Sotheby's, London, 23rd June 2003, lot 34
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Exhibited

Chicago, Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, René Magritte, 1964, no. 10
Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Dada and Surrealism in Chicago Collections, 1984-85, illustrated in the catalogue
Yamaguchi, Musée Préfectural, René Magritte, 1988
Tokyo, Museum of Modern Art, René Magritte, 1988, no. 28, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Mitsukoshi, Museum of Art; Hyogo, Museum of Modern Art & Fukuoka, Museum of Art, Magritte Retrospective, 1994-95, no. 14, illustrated in colour in the catalogue
Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Magritte, 1998, no. 71, illustrated in colour in the catalogue

Literature

David Sylvester (ed.) & Sarah Whitfield, René Magritte. Catalogue Raisonné, Oil Paintings 1916-1930, London, 1992, vol. I, no. 267, illustrated p. 307
Robert Hughes, The Portable Magritte, New York, 2002, illustrated in colour p. 90

Condition

The canvas is unlined with a thin strip-lining around the turnover edges. There are some spots and areas of retouching along the right and lower framing edges, a few small spots and lines of retouching in the branches of the tree, and two areas of retouching in the grey pigment in the lower half (the larger of them measuring 2cm.), all visible under UV light. This work is in good condition.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

Towards the end of 1928, Magritte executed this and another canvas on the theme of Le Palais de rideaux, depicting overlapping anthropomorphic forms. The two hollowed-out shapes are filled, respectively, with a curtain and a cloudy sky and set against a forest landscape in the background. These shapes are suggestive of shrouded human forms, an image very characteristic of Magritte's early work. Commenting on his works executed from 1925, the artist himself said that they were 'the result of a systematic search for an overwhelming poetic effect through the arrangement of objects borrowed from reality, which would give the real world from which those objects had been borrowed an overwhelming poetic meaning by a natural process of exchange' (quoted in Harry Torczyner, Magritte: Ideas and Images, New York, 1977, pp. 215-216). In the present work, Magritte borrows images from both the natural world (sky) and the man-made (curtain), and transports them both into a realm of his own poetic magic.