Marc Chagall

E.L.T Mesens, Brussels
P.G. van Hecke, Brussels
Louis Franck, Antwerp & London
Sale: Christie's, London, 30th April 1999, lot 121
Sale: Galerie Kornfeld, Bern, 18th June 2004, lot 14
Private Collection, Europe (purchased at the above sale; sale: Christie's, London, 19th June 2007, lot 171)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Brussels, Galerie l'Epoque, Gouaches de Chagall, 1929, no. 3
Knokke-le-Zoute, XIVe Festival Belge d'Été, Hommage à Marc Chagall, 1961, no. 28 (titled Nu and dated 1925-26)

Franz Meyer, Marc Chagall, Life and Work, London, 1964, no. 473, illustrated n.p.

Executed on red laid paper, not laid down and t-hinged to card at the upper two corners. The sheet is slightly time-stained, though the colours remain fresh and vibrant. There is a tiny paper loss to the lower edge towards the left corner and two more along the upper edge. The sheet is very gently undulating which is inherent to the artist's process. There are a few tiny spots of medium loss in places: to the white pigment on the woman's lower leg and to the right of her exposed arm. There is some paint shrinkage to the red flowers in the bouquet, with some associated slight medium loss. Otherwise this work is in overall very good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue, though the yellow and blue pigments are slightly lighter and fresher in the original.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Executed circa 1926-27, Femme nu à l’éventail is an arresting and thoroughly modern reinterpretation of the classical Venus subject. Definitively detaching himself from his academic training and announcing his mature style, Chagall here presents us with his very personal synthesis of the lessons he had absorbed from Cubism, Symbolism and Fauvism during his formative years in St. Petersburg and later in Paris. The traditional subject of a female nude with a fan is a recurring theme in Chagall’s œuvre, first appearing in his gouache Femme à l’éventail of 1911 (Meyer 56, Private Collection) and later as a decoration for a ceramic bowl in 1950 (Meyer 854, Private Collection). In the present work, however, Chagall explores his subject through colour, line and texture simultaneously, focusing on the rendering of the body’s volume through vibrant brushstrokes. His figure has turned her back to the viewer, twisting in the manner of Ingres’ La Grande Odalisque, leaving our eyes to trace the voluptuous curves of her twisting body but crucially offering no eye contact herself, instead staring down at her fan in a private reverie.

It was during his first stay in Paris, from 1910 to 1914, that Chagall discovered the technique of gouache in which he so clearly revels in the present work: boldly juxtaposing blue, yellow and orange hues against the warm red background of the paper. Exhibited in 1929 at an exhibition devoted to his gouaches at the Galerie de l’Époque, Femme nu à l’éventail is the confident and dynamic work of an artist reaching his apogee. Indeed, it was upon his return to Paris in 1923, this time with his wife, Bella, that his career began to really take off and in 1926, around the time that he painted the present work, the first important exhibition of Chagall’s work was held in the United States, at the Reinhardt Galleries in New York.