Marc Chagall

Estate of the artist
Chalk & Vermilion Fine Art, Greenwich (acquired from the above)
Coast Galleries, Carmel
Private Collection, Ohio (acquired from the above in 2000)
Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco  
Acquired from the above 

Work is in very good condition. Surface is clean on a stable board. Some minor flaking to the ink wash noticeable on the man riding the cock at upper center and in the arms of the clown center right and in a few other spots. Some flakes of loss in the right dancers arm and around her feet. The work has vibrant color and is slightly tending more green then blue in the central background. Under UV light no inpainting is apparent. Otherwise fine.
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.

Painted in 1980, Le Clown au cirque marks the artist's lifelong fascination with the circus. Chagall first became inspired by the traveling acrobatic troupes when he would share a box with Ambroise Vollard at Le Cirque d'hiver Bouglione in the late 1920s. He drew great creative energy from watching the event, and some of his most important canvases are fantastic depictions that exaggerate it's pageantry. "It's a magic world, the circus," Chagall once wrote, "an age-old game that is danced, and in which tears and smiles, the play of arms and legs take the form of great art... The circus is the performance that seems to me the most tragic. Throughout the centuries, it has been man's most piercing cry in his search for entertainment and joy" (quoted in Marc Chagall, Le Cirque (exhibition catalogue), Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York, 1981, n.p.). 

Although this picture is mostly populated by circus performers, these characters had many levels of significance for the artist. To him, they represented the many faces of man's emotional character, both fun-loving and tragic. He once remarked, "I have always considered the clowns, acrobats, and actors as being tragically human who, for me, would resemble characters from certain religious paintings. And even today, when I paint a Crucifixion or another religious painting, I experience again almost the same sensations that I felt while painting circus people, and yet there is nothing literary in these paintings, and it is very difficult to explain why I find a psycho-plastic resemblance between the two kinds of compositions" (quoted in Marc Chagall (exhibition catalogue), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, 2003, p. 106). 

Shortly before he executed the present work, Chagall was commissioned to design a number of stained-glass windows and he began to conceive of paintings in terms of broad areas of color. As in the Russian Orthodox stained-glass windows which inspired him, reality is filtered through Chagall's visionary lens. The fantastical array of characters painted with light, transparent touches of color, dance across the picture surface. Floating clowns and musicians infused with blues and yellows animate the composition and exemplify the artist's delight in revealing the sensuous, playful possibilities of color.