Marc Chagall

Mordecai Joffe, Russia (probably acquired directly from the artist)
Bernheim Jeune, Paris
Private Collection, France
Sam Salz, inc., New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1972

Franz Meyer, Marc Chagall, New York, 1961, no. 454, illustrated n.p.

Executed on cream wove paper, not laid down, intermittently glued to a board along all four edges. There are pin holes to all four corners, the lower edge is deckled with the lower right corner torn where glued to the board. There are a few, very minor, and not visible when framed, intermittent tiny tears along the extreme left edge with some associated paper loss. There is a tiny spot of shrinkage with some pigment loss to the thick orange gouache on the lion's figure. The colours are fresh and vibrant. This work is in overall very good condition.
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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."

In 1927-30 Ambroise Vollard decided to commission an artist to illustrate La Fontaine’s Fables, realising that the work of the writer had thus far only inspired literary or fragmented illustrations. He intended to call upon ‘an artist with a creative imagination, and capable of coloured inventions’ (Ambroise Vollard, ‘De la Fontaine à Chagall’, L’Intransigeant, 8 janvier 1929) and the search instinctively led him to choose Marc Chagall as the foremost artist. Chagall had just returned to France two years earlier, and this commission allowed him to execute one hundred gouaches around this theme whilst simultaneously celebrating his association with such a prestigious figure in French literature. Many disapproved of Vollard’s decision to ask an artist with a Romantic style, and a native of Russia, to illustrate a symbol of French culture: the case was even discussed in front of the National Assembly. But in response to all this outrage, Vollard sagaciously reminded them: ‘Didn’t La Fontaine himself borrow his Fables from Aesop, who was Latin as far as I know?’ (Ambroise Vollard, in Marc Chagall, Les Fables de La Fontaine, Paris, 1995, p.18). Other critics, however were inspired by these compositions, including Jacques Guenne for whom ‘in front of this series of gouaches, none of which resembles the other, not in colour, not in inspiration, it is difficult to decide what we should admire most, the tremendous alchemy arising from each image, or the fabulous invention and touching kindness of this spirit. Maybe we should above all revel in the miraculous way that Chagall’s colours become the high point of his inspiration’ (Jacques Guenne, L’Art vivant, 15 décembre 1927).