Marc Chagall

Estate of Ida Chagall (the artist's daughter)
O'Hara Gallery, New York
Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc. New York
Babette Cohen, New York
Acquired from the above in 1998
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, 8th November 2006, lot 517
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Like many of his compositions, Chagall combines various vignettes in a single work to weave a complex tapestry of multiple narratives. Susan Compton writes, "When he was younger, Chagall disliked being told that his art was literary or even poetic, because he wanted to suppress narration in his work in favor of the means of expression... throughout his paintings Chagall introduces human beings, who may be arranged in an illogical manner, but who are constant reminders that art is above all a celebration of the humanity of mankind" (Chagall, (exhibition catalogue), London, 1985, p. 242).

In spite of his distaste for adherence to convention, the present work contains highly recognizable and beloved themes that repeatedly populated both the artist's imagination and his paintings. Flowers, which dominate the foreground, fascinated Chagall from the late 1920's onward. The artist was first struck by the charm of flowers in Toulon in 1924; he later claimed that he had not known of flowers in Russia and they therefore came to represent France for him. The effervescent bursts of colour in the bouquet and the fruit basket add a note of levity to an otherwise somber composition. Life, growth and the cyclical nature of existence are underscored by their presence in the primary picture plane, perhaps a commentary on the scenes that lie deeper within the canvas. Young lovers are frequently featured throughout Chagall's oeuvre, and comprise among the most important and symbolic of the cast of characters rendered in his paintings. The couple tenderly embraces as they linger on the border of the picture plane. Enveloped in their own world, they belong to neither the genre scene in the foreground nor the landscape behind. The small village of Vitebsk, the artist's birthplace in Russia, was most probably the inspiration for the humble cluster of rooftops set serenely beneath the moon.