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Lot Essay
This work is sold with a photo-certificate from David McNeil.
After having introduced the outside of his paternal house (lot 567), Chagall offers us an intimate view into what was happening inside his home. With an innocent child's eyes, he depicts the family's vegetable garden in an almost schematic way and allows the viewer to share a daily supper at the Chagalls' by opening the walls of his house.
Seated around the table is his mother on the right with her husband opposite her, whilst a third figure is politely waiting for the meal to begin. Sharing dinners with all the family was an important event in the Jewish tradition, and Chagall describes them at length in My Life (pp. 30-32). In a comparable watercolour Our Dining Room of 1911 (Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne), Chagall does not hesitate to zoom in on the present composition, focusing on the dinner itself.
Another anecdotal detail which Chagall ingenuously adds in to his composition with a few suggestive pen lines, is the contrast between his mother reciting the benedictional prayer before supper, and his father, already falling asleep on the table. Marc recalls in My Life, 'Father was already snoring, before he had time to say his prayer (what could one do?), and mother, in front of the stove, was singing the rabbi's song, followed by us all' (p. 31).
After having introduced the outside of his paternal house (lot 567), Chagall offers us an intimate view into what was happening inside his home. With an innocent child's eyes, he depicts the family's vegetable garden in an almost schematic way and allows the viewer to share a daily supper at the Chagalls' by opening the walls of his house.
Seated around the table is his mother on the right with her husband opposite her, whilst a third figure is politely waiting for the meal to begin. Sharing dinners with all the family was an important event in the Jewish tradition, and Chagall describes them at length in My Life (pp. 30-32). In a comparable watercolour Our Dining Room of 1911 (Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne), Chagall does not hesitate to zoom in on the present composition, focusing on the dinner itself.
Another anecdotal detail which Chagall ingenuously adds in to his composition with a few suggestive pen lines, is the contrast between his mother reciting the benedictional prayer before supper, and his father, already falling asleep on the table. Marc recalls in My Life, 'Father was already snoring, before he had time to say his prayer (what could one do?), and mother, in front of the stove, was singing the rabbi's song, followed by us all' (p. 31).