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MARC CHAGALL(1887-1985)Étude pour 'Commedia dell'arte'
Sold for £102,000 inc. premium
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MARC CHAGALL (1887-1985)
stamped with the artist's signature 'Marc Chagall' (lower left)
coloured pencil on paper
37.9 x 56cm (14 15/16 x 22 1/16in).
Executed in 1957-1958
Footnotes
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by the Comité Marc Chagall.
Provenance
The artist's estate.
Thence by descent to the previous owner, their sale; Christie's, Paris, 11 April 2023, lot 328.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.
The present sketch was executed as a study for Marc Chagall's Commedia dell'arte (1959). At 2.5 by 4 metres, Commedia dell'arte is the largest painting by Chagall in Germany and was the first artwork Chagall completed for a German client after World War II. The painting currently hangs within the locally dubbed 'Chagall Hall' at the opera wing of the Städtische Bühnen in Frankfurt. Chagall accepted the commission from the city of Frankfurt only upon the condition that he be able to complete the painting in his studio in Vence, as he had vowed after the war never to set foot in Germany again. Miraculously, the canvas – which had to be nailed to the walls of Chagall's studio and then rolled up for its journey to Frankfurt – survived a fire in the Städtische Bühnen in 1987.
The present work's dreamlike circus imagery also appears to be indebted to Chagall's famous Le grand cirque (1956), with its bold, primary colours befitting its playful whimsicality. While the term 'Commedia dell'arte' normally refers to the Italian theatrical tradition of the 16th and 17th centuries, involving stock characters with elaborate masks, the term is utilised here more holistically by Chagall, who viewed all the world and its players as its own enchanting 'commedia dell'arte'.
