René Magritte

François Deknop, Brussels (acquired directly from the artist)
Private collection, Belgium

(i) : Executed on a sheet of paper taken from an exhibition catalogue, not laid down, attached to the overmount with tape in two places at the upper edge. There is some tiny crease towards the lower right edge. The sheet is slightly time stained. This work is in overall very good condition. (ii) : Executed on a sheet of paper taken from an exhibition catalogue, not laid down, attached to the overmount with tape in two places at the upper edge. The sheet is slightly time stained. This work is in overall very good condition.
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This work is executed on the reverse of a card annoncing the first example of Rhétorique in 1961.

Four works by Magritte from the Collection François Deknop

François Deknop  and his wife were close to René and Georgette Magritte whom they met after the Second World War through their mutual friends, Pierre and Angèle Sanders.

They quickly became close friends and Magritte often invited them to the evenings he organized with another couple, Irène Hamoir and Louis Scutenaire, in order to give a title to the works he had just painted. These "literary salons" generally took place on Sunday afternoons when the Magrittes lived at Jette, and on Saturday evenings when they moved to Schaerbeek. Among the famous titles of his works, we owe the title of Le Paysage de baucis (1966) to the Deknop couple. The titles were directly written by Magritte on the back of the canvases. Most of the drawings presented at the auction today stem from the same spirit, as Magritte sketched them in order to explain his works in progress to his friends, the better to think of a good title.