Le banquet

Details

René Magritte (1898-1967)
Le banquet
signed 'Magritte' (lower right)
gouache on paper
14 1/8 x 18¼ in. (35.9 x 46.4 cm.)
Executed in 1956

Provenance

Alexandre Iolas, by whom acquired directly from the artist on 24 December 1956.
Jean and Dominique de Menil, Houston, by whom acquired from the above circa 1960.
Dr Aurelia Potter, New York, a gift from the above, Christmas 1970.
Anonymous sale, Christie's, London, 29 June 2000, lot 621 (£168,750).
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

Literature

Letter from Magritte to Mirabelle Dors and Maurice Rapin, 9 November 1956.
Letter from Magritte to Alexandre Iolas, 14 December 1956.
Letter from Magritte to Alexandre Iolas, 29 January 1957.
H. Torczyner, Magritte - Ideas and Images, New York, 1977, no. 217 (illustrated p. 261).
D. Sylvester (ed.), René Magritte, Catalogue raisonné, vol. IV, Gouaches, Temperas, Watercolours and Papiers Collés, 1918-1967, Antwerp, 1994, no. 1421 (illustrated p. 193).

Exhibited

Dallas, Museum for Contemporary Arts, René Magritte in America, December 1960 - January 1961, no. 58; this exhibition later travelled 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

It is interesting to note that this work is the first time that this image appears in René Magritte's oeuvre. In a letter to Mirabelle Dors and Maurice Rapin dated 9 November 1956 Magritte told them that 'Le banquet' was one of his two latest 'finds'. Against a first rough sketch of it he wrote, "trees against a reddish sky at sunset. The red sun is visible on the mass of the trees hiding it". Magritte, visibly satisfied by his find, painted two oil variations of it in the following year.

The verso of 'Le banquet' shows a pencil sketch relating to another work by Magritte of 1956, 'La place au soleil', which depicts an ancient Egyptian scribe transposed onto an apple.

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