René Magritte

Private Collection (and sold: Sotheby's, New York, November 12, 1988, lot 187)
Private Collection, United States (acquired at the above sale)
Sale: Christie's, New York, May 11, 1995, lot 408
Acquired at the above sale

Lausanne, Fondation de L'Hermitage, René Magritte, 1987, no. 130, illustrated in the catalogue

This work is in very good condition. Executed on cream wove paper, not laid down. The edges of the sheet are irregular and appear to have been cut. Remnants of old framer's tape visible along the top edge and along the verso of the top and bottom edges. There is some light discoloration along the perimeter from an old mat, otherwise fine.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

A fascination with the image of a ghost in white sheet absorbed Magritte beginning in the early months of 1946. In a letter to Paul Nougé, founder of Surrealism in Belgium, Magritte wrote: "I saw in a dream an answer to the problem of the ghost: the traditional ghost draped in a sheet in a framed picture on the wall of a room” (quoted in David Sylvester, ed., René Magritte: Catalogue Raisonne, vol. II, Antwerp, 1993, pp. 376-77).

Magritte’s recourse to the multiple—within this composition and across his works—exemplifies the Surrealist practice of the double that was connected to Freud’s theories of the uncanny and compulsion to repeat. “Freud had identified the feeling of uncanniness as a sense of the return of something archaic, and had analyzed the accompanying anxiety as related to the death drive’s compulsion to repeat; the uncanny could thus be said to be a kind of eruption of the non-living in the midst of life: a return of the living dead” (Hal Foster, Art Since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism, New York, 2004, p. 224). Magritte poignantly attains the sense of the living dead through the averted gaze and immotile stance of the woman, as well through her ghostly echo. Magritte fashioned her torso to be strikingly similar to the spectral figure in his 1945 painting The Rape, a work referencing his mother’s suicide and the discovery of her exposed body but concealed face.

This work on paper was executed after the completion of an oil painting of the same title. In light of its large size and polished execution, this work was most likely a presentation piece intended for a friend or meant for inclusion in an exhibition rather than as a preliminary study.