Lot 396
  • 396

Marc Chagall

Estimate
250,000 - 350,000 USD
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Description

  • Marc Chagall
  • Village sous la neige
  • Signed Marc Chagall (lower left)
  • Oil on canvas
  • 10 3/4 by 13 7/8 in.
  • 27.3 by 35.1 cm

Provenance

Luba Potamkin, New York (and sold: Parke-Bernet Galleries Inc., New York, November 28, 1973, lot 45)
Galerie Internationale, Paris
Rossi Collection, London
Acquired from the above in 1990

Exhibited

Osaka, Takashimaya Art Gallery & traveling, Chagall, 2012, n.n.

Condition

The canvas is unlined. The surface is richly textured. Fine lines craquelure vis areas thickets pigment mn in the whites at lower right. Under UV light, certain orig pigs fluoresce, no inpainting apparent. vgc.
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Catalogue Note

Village sous la neige is a profoundly emotive and poignant illustration of Marc Chagall’s meditative imagery. The artist’s psychology and narrative are communicated through powerful recurring motifs, and such themes manifest the framework of the composition. At once haunting and beguiling, nostalgia fills the present work and lends it its engaging charm. The enigmatic hovering figure, with her dark hair and bouquet of gathered flowers in hand, dressed in a black robe decorated by a white lace collar, is strongly reminiscent of Chagall’s portraits of his late wife Bella. Her death in 1944 had a profound effect on the artist and in the years immediately following her passing Chagall was haunted by the phantom of Bella, her likeness appearing as a ghost-like form in a number of his paintings. Shaped by the curving form of the road, Bella merges with her surroundings, a dreamscape of the artist’s native Vitebsk. Here, Chagall depicts his hometown under a layer of light snow, the carpet of white blanketing the houses and streets of the little village. The shtetl-esque buildings and rural character of Vitebsk served as a continual source of inspiration for Chagall, who referred to it as “the soil that nourished the roots of my art” (quoted in Jacob Baal-Teshuva, Marc Chagall: 1887-1985, New York, 1998, p. 19). Vitebsk remained vivid in his mind following his departure for Paris in 1922, even though the artist would never again return to the small town, and became intrinsically bound to Chagall’s memories of his youth. Images of Vitebsk took on a new significance to the artist in his work of the post-war years, as his beloved hometown was effectively destroyed during the German invasion of Russia. Chagall's memories of his distant past, the vanished way of life of his homeland and his lost former identity continued to provide artistic inspiration for the rest of his life, emerging in dream-like, magical scenes such as that in Village sous la niege. Together, the highly emotive and deeply personal iconography of his most fond subjects are harmoniously combined in the present work.