René Magritte

Willy van Hove, Belgium

Acquired from the above through Galerie Isy Brachot on December 18, 1967 and thence by descent

Brussels, Galerie Isy Brachot, Magritte: Cent cinquante oeuvres; Première vue mondiale de ses sculptures, 1968, no. 146

Tokyo, National Museum of Modern Art & Kyoto, Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art, Rétrospective René Magritte, 1971, no. 87, illustrated in the catalogue.

Tokyo, Galerie des Arts de Tokyo, Shibuya; Toyama, Musée d'Art de la Préfecture & Kumamoto, Musée d'art de la Préfecture, René Magritte, 1982, no. 67

Lausanne, Fondation de l'Hermitage, René Magritte, 1987, no. 75, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Munich, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, René Magritte, 1987-88, no. 72, illustrated in color in the catalogue

Brussels, Musée d'Art Moderne, Magritte, 1898-1998, 1998, no. 296, illustrated in color in the catalogue

"Numéro René Magritte," L'Art Belge, Brussels, January 1968, illustrated p. 79

Jacques Meuris, Magritte, Paris, 1988, illustrated p. 136

David Sylvester, Sarah Whitfield & Michael Raeburn, René Magritte, Catalogue raisonné, vol. IV, London, 1994, no. 1353, illustrated p. 154

In very good condition overall. Gouache on card laid down on board. This work is very slightly light struck. One 5 3/8 inch pencil line along the extreme lower edge of the card. One 2 ¾ inch pencil line along the extreme upper right vertical edge, otherwise fine.
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Magritte first painted this motif of the petrified chair in 1950 (see Sylvester, no. 717). The image was photographed for Garde-Fou in 1950 and appeared with text by Marcel Mariën: "Avant de commencer sa carrière au service de l'homme, la chaise dans son sein repose' (Before beginning its career in the service of mankind, the chair rests in its own bosom)" (quoted in D. Sylvester, op. cit., vol. III, p. 152). The title is taken from Victor Hugo and supposedly was assigned to this motif through a collaborative effort between Magritte and Mariën.

Beginning in the 1950s, Magritte explores a fascination with stones and petrification of objects.  The stone served a literal purpose in Magritte's paintings, as observed by the physicist Albert V. Baez: "The force of gravity, which we dismiss as commonplace in our daily lives, becomes powerful and awesome here. We can step on an ordinary stone any day without giving it a second thought, but the stone in the paintings is compelling.  The artist has made it extraordinary.  It reminds us that all stones are extraordinary."  Magritte's own thoughts on the matter were more philosophical, likening the solid nature of the stone with the mental and physical constitution of the human being.  For others, his petrification paintings were signifiers of time, place and permanence.  "I know of no painting that conveys so totally the sense of a universe in suspense, a universe in which everything is waiting and nothing moves" (Roger Shattuck, "This is not René Magritte," Art Forum, September 1966, p. 35).

According to David Sylvester's catalogue raisonné on the artist, this work was signed and titled on the verso by Magritte in either 1966 or 1967 though this is now mostly obscured by museum exhibition labels on the reverse.