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Lot Essay
The present dcoupage is thought to be the maquette for the lid of a deluxe boxed edition of L'Aube l'antipode, a selection of poems by Alain Jouffroy with seven full-page etchings made after drawings by Magritte. Published in 1966, the deluxe edition came in a specially designed case, whose lid has four cut-out emblems designed by the artist which are the reverse of Torczyner's dcoupage.
The idea of dcoupage dates back to Magritte's earliest Surrealist works of 1927-1928, including L'Esprit comique (Sylvester, no. 259; coll. Arlette Magritte), Les Parures de l'orage, and Le Muse de nuit (Sylvester, nos. 171 and 170; private collections). Three of these symbols in particular--the bird, chalice and pipe--are found with the silhouette of a key in Torczyner's gouache Le Thrapeute, 1946 (see lot 305, Christie's, New York, 19 November 1998) and a related oil Le Librateur, 1947 (Sylvester, no. 630; coll. Los Angeles County Museum of Art).
The idea of dcoupage dates back to Magritte's earliest Surrealist works of 1927-1928, including L'Esprit comique (Sylvester, no. 259; coll. Arlette Magritte), Les Parures de l'orage, and Le Muse de nuit (Sylvester, nos. 171 and 170; private collections). Three of these symbols in particular--the bird, chalice and pipe--are found with the silhouette of a key in Torczyner's gouache Le Thrapeute, 1946 (see lot 305, Christie's, New York, 19 November 1998) and a related oil Le Librateur, 1947 (Sylvester, no. 630; coll. Los Angeles County Museum of Art).