Lot 51
  • 51

René Magritte

Estimate
1,500,000 - 2,500,000 USD
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Description

  • René Magritte
  • Le Repos de l'esprit
  • Signed Magritte (lower left)
  • Gouache on paper laid down on board
  • 15 1/2 by 22 7/8 in.
  • 39.5 by 58 cm

Provenance

Mr. and Mrs. A. Cuvelier, Brussels (acquired from the artist circa 1942-43 and sold: Sotheby's, London, December 3, 1970, lot 105)

Private Collection, United States (acquired at the above sale)

Acquired by the present owner in 2006

Literature

David Sylvester, Sarah Whitfield & Michael Raeburn, René Magritte, Catalogue raisonné, Gouaches, Temperas, Watercolours and Papiers Collés 1918-1967, vol. IV, London, 1994, no. 1182, illustrated p. 55

Condition

Executed on paper laid down on board. Under UV light, there are isolated spots of inpainting in the background outside the wooden frame as well as other extensive inpainting particularly in the shelf and sphere in the foreground. There are two vertical 10-inch lines of inpainting descending from the top edge right of center.
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.

Catalogue Note

Magritte painted Le Repos de l'esprit while living in Paris after the German occupation of Belgium and Holland. In resistance to the anxiety of the war years, Magritte employed a lighter palette in much of his work at the time.

According to the catalogue raisonné, the silhouette of the cut-out bird is very closely related to that of the bird in Le Retour (Sylvester, no. 485), from 1940. Magritte depicts his subjects with great attention to detail, and his use of realism in these works challenged the dominant shift towards abstraction in modern art. Siegfried Gohr writes: "The crisis of vision prompted again and again by Magritte cannot be reduced to the sense that the world has gone off the rails; rather, it evokes a world that has become questionable, in the truest sense of the word, to its core. Magritte demonstrates this not by means of abstract experiments but by investigating concrete properties of objects, sensed in quite individual terms" (S. Gohr, "The Charming Provocateur," in René Magritte: The Key to Dreams (exhibition catalogue), Vienna, 2005, pp. 23-24).

In the foreground of the present work, Magritte depicts a framed composition just beyond a stone ledge. The artist often returned to this technique of including compositions within compositions, emphasizing the process of presentation. Within the frame, Magritte presents the image of a bird in flight. Implicitly related to this image, an egg rests on the ledge in the foreground. A sun-filled landscape with a mountain range provides the background. The presentation of objects out of their usual context and the destabilization of the known world were constant themes in Magritte's art. In his essay 'La ligne de vie', written in 1938, Magritte commented on the relation of objects and place in his work: "As my research had necessarily to arrive at a single correct answer for each object, my investigation took the form of trying to find the solution of a problem with three points of reference: the object, the something linked to it in the obscurity of my consciousness and the light into which the something had to be brought" (ibid., p. 24).