Marc Chagall

Mitsukoshi Department Store, Tokyo
Private Collection (acquired from the above in 2002)

Canvas is unlined. Under UV light no inpainting is apparent. Work is in excellent condition.
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Painted during Chagall's mature period, Les Mariés au coq rouge is a colorful celebration of two of the artist's favorite subjects, lovers and the rooster.  Franz Meyer states, "The fowlyard, too, has its place in Chagall's recollections of his childhood.  That is why poultry are always part of the Russian scenes painted during his first Paris period.  In the twenties impressions of French farmyards and work on the Fables lend the motif a new topicality.  It first occupies a central position in On the Rooster (fig. 1) painted in 1928, which is linked with the pictures of young girls riding horses and donkeys.  Here, however, the brother and sister relationship is lacking, as indicated by the incongruity of the dimensions of the rider and her mount.  Of course, as a symbol the cock has an entirely different and far stranger nature than the quadrupeds, which, despite their four feet, are more closely related to man.  For thousands of years it has played a part in religious rites as the embodiment of the forces of the sun and fire.  This symbolic meaning still lingers on in Chagall's works, where the cock represents elementary spiritual power" (Franz Meyer, Marc Chagall, New York, 1963, p. 380). 

The present colorful composition combines a number of important motifs from Chagall's rich imagery, including embraced lovers, the village, peasants, flowers, a guardian rooster and the sun.  Les Mariés au coq rouge illustrates the important themes in Chagall's oeuvre, "Throughout his life certain themes recur in the work of Chagall: ... lovers and peasants take their place beside more somber scenes (...) For the themes in Chagall's art are timeless, not confined to a single epoch of history, but reminding man of the continuity of life for generation after generation, since the earliest days of recorded time" (S. Compton, Chagall, The Royal Academy of Arts, London (exhibition catalogue), 1985, p. 14).

Love and marriage are also recurring themes in Chagall's work and in his life.  His own love story began in 1909, when he met Bella Rosenfeld, the daughter of a wealthy Vitebsk merchant.  It was love at first sight and she would serve as his muse for years to follow.  As Meyer describes, "Always present—watching, advising, refining—she supplied echo and answers to artistic questions, formed contacts, removed obstacles. She was and still is the archetype of the loved one, the bride who leans toward her young groom in so many pictures, the tender girl who dreams in her lover's arms" (Franz Meyer, op. cit., pp. 465-466).

Fig. 1 Marc Chagall, Sur le coq, 1928, oil on canvas