Impressionist and Modern Art

The Comité Marc Chagall has confirmed the authenticity of this lot, which will be accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.

Provenance:

The Estate of the Artist.

Collection of Evelyn Aimis Fine Art, Delray Beach, Florida.

Acquired directly from the above in 1996.

Private Collection, Chicago, Illinois.

Sotheby’s New York, sale of November 6, 2015, lot 396.

Acquired directly from the above sale.

Private Collection, Chicago, Illinois.

Lot Essay:

Amoureux aux Fleurs Devant la Fenêtre à Paris, 1965 is a touching and resonant example of one of Marc Chagall’s most iconic motifs, that of lovers by a window. Here, the artist shows a diminutive couple laying together in the lower left corner, the woman reading a book. Above them are overflowing vessels filles with verdant plants and flowers, and beyond, the Parisian cityscape with the Eiffel Tower visible. This image of a happy, tender moment stopped in time is a quintessential one, as lovers were among Chagall’s most common themes, which he often revisited throughout his career and multiple love affairs. Following the sudden death in 1944 of his sweetheart Bella, Chagall partnered with Valeria McNeil, a married woman who became the mother of his son. The present feminine figure is most likely a reference to Valentina Brodsky, "Vava", whom the artist married shortly after his daughter Ida introduced them in 1952. Vava enabled him to find respite after years of tension and anxiety that had marked his work in the years during and after the Second World War.

The present work bursts with enthusiasm and warmth, which recalls Chagall’s bliss period in the South of France initiated earlier in his career, and which influenced his later work when the artist relocated to Saint-Paul-de-Vence in the mid-1950s. As such, it proves how biographical all of Chagall's oils, drawings, and even lithographs can be. Each work is conceived to perpetuate an old memory, a token of a loving, fond moment lost in the past, "that of a plenitude as fresh as a bouquet of flowers." In doing so, Chagall embodies the old myth associated with the invention of painting, that of a young draughtswoman tracing the shadow of her departing lover on the wall, so as not to forget him and forever preserve an image of him. As such, every element in the composition becomes a pretext for the evocation of love, its energy, its luxury, but also its fleeting nature, its fragility. The couple's love, just as the lush bouquets, can wither, tremble, and eventually dissolve into Chagall's soft, hazy touch, only to leave behind the stinging souvenir of a past moment of romantic bliss. Thus, the artist, who lived through the entire 20th century and experienced both world wars and many revolutions, transforms this composition into a contemporary momento mori: let us gather the roses of this bouquet of life, and seize the day before it is too late.