After Marc Chagall, William Shakespeare

A first edition, limited folio of The Tempest, with 50 lithographs, each signed by Chagall.

• Marc Chagall
• After William Shakespeare.
• Monte Carlo: Andre Sauret, 1975.
• Folio. 
• Fifty lithographs overall, with original tissue guards.
• Limited edition of 250 signed and numbered copies (this is #96), 270 the entire edition.
• Original glassine wrappers; loose signatures, as issued, printed on Arches wove paper, in a cream vellum box, stamped in gilt on cover, held in original publisher's cardboard shipping box with label.

A wonderful and evocative series of lithographs, produced when Chagall was 88 years old, and all signed by him. When Raymond Levy of Editions André Sauret first approached the artist about illustrating Shakespeare's Tempest, Chagall initially hesitated because he was afraid he might not do justice to the text, but then between March and May 1975, he produced fifty drawings on tracing paper, which were transferred onto zinc plates and sent back to Chagall for final retouching (Sorlier S. 17f.).