Bonhams 1793 : René Magritte (Belgian, 1898-1967) Le puits de vérité

7 Feb 2012 14:00 GMT London, New Bond Street
Impressionist and Modern Art
Back to auction 19954

René Magritte (Belgian, 1898-1967)

Le puits de vérité
signed, dated and inscribed 'Magritte/ 1967 E.A' (on the top of the base)
bronze with brown patina
81cm. (31 7/8in.) (height)
Conceived in 1967 and cast in the same year in an edition of 6, numbered 0/5 to 5/5 and one artist's proof. This work is the artist's proof.

Estimate:

£150,000 - 200,000
€180,000 - 230,000
US$ 230,000 - 310,000

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Gift from the artist to Georgette Magritte (the artist's wife), 1968 until her death in 1986.
Magritte's studio sale, Sotheby's London, 2 July 1987.
Galerie Isy Brachot, Brussels (acquired from the above sale).
Galerie Guy Pieters, Belgium.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

EXHIBITED
Brussels, Galerie Isy Brachot, 1968, no.7.

LITERATURE
S. Gablik, Magritte, London, 1971, no.17 (another cast illustrated).
D. Sylvester (ed.), René Magritte catalogue raisonné, London, 1993, vol.III, no.1087 (another cast illustrated p.459).

This work is sold with a photo-certificate of authenticity from the Comité Magritte dated Bruxelles, le 25.10.2011, no.CR 2011-2-16.

It was in 1913 at the tender age of sixteen that Magritte met his beloved Georgette Berger. A year later he left to enrol at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, and it was only in 1920 that a chance encounter in an art supply store brought the two lovers together again. Georgette was to become Magritte's future wife and life-long creative muse and, despite the provocative and avant-garde nature of his works, Margritte and his wife led, to all appearances at least, a remarkably conventional and bourgeois existence. The couple remained together in a contented and scandal-free marriage for forty-five years.

Towards the end of his life, René Magritte spoke of the 'perfect vacuity' that he felt towards ideas for new paintings, within an environment where he felt pushed by his New York art dealer to produce new work. Furthermore, by 1964 Magritte's physical illness due to cancer was affecting his ability to paint and the pressure did not aid his lack of inspiration. However, that sombreness changed dramatically in the final year of his life. His dealer suggested that he produce a small number of sculptures and Magritte enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to work with a new medium: bronze. The excitement of the series temporarily revived him physically as well as mentally, and it is recorded that he went to the bronze foundry in Verona on a number of occasions to ensure that the casting was completed to his exacting specifications. Magritte chose eight subjects to cast in bronze, through which he aimed to communicate the overarching ideas shown through his painted works. Le puits de vérité was one of the first works to be cast and is regarded to be amongst one of the most successful sculptures within the series (as per David Sylvester, Magritte, 1992, p.309), bringing together the artist's fascination with ideas of the banal, identity and notions of scale.

This sculpture relates to a 1963 painting of the same title, which depicts the oversized shoe and truncated trouser leg in the foreground and a row of trees in the background. In a letter with a preparatory sketch for the painting, Magritte affixed a working title of Le Standard (The Standard) to the piece in order to reflect 'the sense of the immutable unity of measurement' that he wanted to explore through the painting (quoted by Harry Torczyner, 1979, Magritte: The True Art of Painting, p.139). Later, it was renamed Le puits de vérité (The Well of Truth) to perhaps give further anchor to the concepts of congruity and incongruity encapsulated within the painting. The motif and title remained pertinent for Magritte, and this sculpture embodies the initial conceptual dialogue by translating it into three dimensions.