René Magritte

Margaret Krebs, Brussels (a gift from the artist)
Robert Lewin (The Brook Street Gallery), London
Bodley Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner on January 31, 1964

New York, Bodley Gallery, October 1962
New York, Bodley Gallery, Six Surrealists, January 1964
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Summer Loans, June-July 1970
New York, Arnold Herstand & Co., Surrealism, 1984

(probably) Lawrence Campbell, Art News, New York, October 1962, illustrated p. 14
David Sylvester (ed.), Sarah Whitfield and Michael Raeburn, René Magritte Catalogue Raisonné: Gouaches, Temperas, Watercolours and Papiers Collés 1918-1967, vol. IV, London, 1994, no. 1651, illustrated p. 319

Magritte had a long history of incorporating papier collé into his compositions, frequently including cuttings from musical scores.   The present work is one of the last in the group of twenty seven executed between 1959 and 1966.  In the present work and four others done at the same time (see: D. Sylvester (ed.), R. Whitfield and M. Raeburn, nos. 1649, 1650, 1652 and 1653), the sheet music used was from a piano medley of themes from Mozart’s Die Zauberflote.

The authors of the Catalogue raisonné date the present work and the three others in the group to 1961-62 and speculate that Magritte inscribed and dated the present work 1931 because he had sold works outside his contract with Alexander Iolas.

The authors of the Catalogue raisonné also note that this piece was one of a series of four included in a 1962 exhibition at the Bodley Gallery in New York.  The Bodley Gallery alleges to have acquired this work from Robert Lewin, but it is more likely to have been purchased directly from Margaret Krebs, an art dealer in Brussels to whom Magritte's inscription refers.