馬克·夏加爾

Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York

Alfred A. Streslin, New York (acquired from the above. Sold by his estate: Christie’s, New York, 17th May 1983, lot 69)

Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Franz Meyer, Marc Chagall. Life and Work, New York, 1961, no. 783, illustrated

Painted in the year that Chagall returned to France from the United States, Le coq jaune marks the end of this important period of transition. The beginning of his time in America was marked by two important events, and the impact of these had a profound effect on his paintings of this period. The very day that Chagall arrived in New York on the 21st June 1941 the Germans invaded Russia and in the ensuing months his beloved hometown of Vitebsk was almost completely destroyed. Then, only three years later, Chagall suffered a second loss in the sudden and unexpected death of his wife Bella. By the late 1940s these events had been assimilated into his art consolidating the imagery of the pre-war years with a sense of nostalgia that would remain an important element of much of his subsequent work.

Suffused with glowing colours, Le coq jaune is a striking amalgamation of these twin influences. The snowy streets and rooftops - specifically recalling the architecture of Vitebsk - form an evocative backdrop to the central figures of a woman and child and the larger-than-life cockerel. Significantly, the female figure is not presented as a lover, but as an emblem of motherhood. This was a vision of Bella that Chagall evoked in a number of paintings from this period and provides a touching counterpoint to the more usual depiction of her as a lover. The cockerel also has a particular significance. A recurring motif in Chagall’s œuvre, as Franz Meyer notes the bird had for thousands of years ‘played a part in religious rites as the embodiment of the forces of the sun and fire. This symbolic meaning still lingers on in Chagall’s work, where the cock represents elementary spiritual power’ (F. Meyer, op. cit., p. 380). In the present work the brightly coloured cockerel acts as a focal point in the composition, with the vibrant yellow that Chagall uses suggesting a sense of renewed hope and vigour in his art.