- 503
René Magritte
Description
- René Magritte
- PORTRAIT DE GEORGETTE
- signed Magritte (upper left)
- oil on canvas
- 54 by 45cm., 21 1/4 by 17 3/4 in.
Provenance
Georgette Magritte (by descent from the above in 1980)
Sale: Sotheby's, London, The Remaining Contents of the Studio of René Magritte, 2nd July 1987, lot 824
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner
Literature
Harry Torczyner, Magritte: Ideas and Images, New York, 1977, illustrated p. 195
Barbara Stoeltie, 'After Magritte', in The World of Interiors, London, April 1986, p. 143, illustrated in a photograph showing the interior of Magritte's home
David Sylvester (ed.), René Magritte. Catalogue raisonné, Oil Paintings, Objects and Bronzes, London, 1993, vol. II, p. 346, no. 570, illustrated
Catalogue Note
David Sylvester records learning from Magritte's wife, Georgette, that 'this undated portrait... was painted from life and was done as a present for her sister Léontine Hoyez-Berger. It is one of only four canvases in which Magritte carried out to the letter his avowed intention to make images in vignettes form and must therefore have followed cat. 569, that is to say, in the late summer of 1944. It passed by sucession to Georgette Magritte on her sister's death' (D. Sylvester, op. cit., p. 346).