Le banquet

Details

René Magritte (1898-1967)
Le banquet
signed 'Magritte' (lower right); with a faint pencil sketch (on the reverse)
gouache on paper
141/8 x 18¼in. (35.9 x 46.5cm.)
Executed in 1956

Provenance

Alexandre Iolás (by whom acquired from the artist December 24 1956).
Jean and Dominique de Menil, Houston (acquired from the above circa 1960).
Dr. Aurelia Potor, New York (a gift from the above at Christmas 1970).

Literature

Letter from Magritte to Mirabelle Dors and Maurice Rapin, November 9, 1956 (published in Dors and Rapin, eds. Quatre-vingt-deux lettres de René Magritte à Mirabelle Dors et Maurice Rapin, Paris, 1976.
Letter from Magritte to Alexandre Iolàs, December 14, 1956.
Letter from Magritte to Alexandre Iolàs, January 29, 1957.
Letter from Magritte to Mirabelle Dors and Maurice Rapin, November 9, 1956 (published in Dors and Rapin, eds. Quatre-vingt-deux lettres de René Magritte à Mirabelle Dors et Maurice Rapin, Paris, 1976.
H. Torczyner, Magritte - Ideas and Images, New York 1977, no. 217 (illustrated on p. 261).
Ed. D. Sylvester, René Magritte, catalogue raisonné, Brussels, 1993, Vol IV, p. 193, no. 1421, (illustrated p. 193).

Exhibited

Dallas, Museum for Contemporary Arts, René Magritte in America, December 1960-January 1961, no. 58. This exhibition travelled later to Houston, Museum of Fine Arts.
Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, The Vision of René Magritte, September-October 1962, no. 51.
Little Rock, Arkansas, Magritte, May-June 1964.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

The present work is the first version of the image, and in a letter to Dors and Rapin Magritte (9 November 1956) told them that Le banquet was one of his latest trouvailes (finds). Next to a rough sketch of it (see illustration), he wrote: des arbres sur un ciel rougeâtre de soleil couchant. Le soleil rouge est visible sur la masse des arbres qui le cachent. (trees against a reddish sky at sunset. The red sun is visible on the mass of the trees hiding it.)
The verso of this gouache shows a faint pencil sketch relating to La place au soleil (Sylvester no. 1407), of an ancient egyptian scribe transposed onto an apple.

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