Marc Chagall (1887-1985)
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Marc Chagall (1887-1985)

La salle à manger

Details
Marc Chagall (1887-1985)
La salle à manger
signed and dated 'Chagall 1910' (lower right)
gouache, watercolour, brush and ink on paper
7 7/8 x 10½ in. (20 x 27 cm.)
Executed in 1910
Provenance
David McNeil (the artist's son), Paris, by descent from the artist (no. D 1182).
Acquired from the above by the present owners in 1987.
Literature
V. Rakitin, Chagall, Disegni inediti dalla Russia a Parigi, Milan, 1989, p. 44 (ill. p. 45).
Exhibited
Milan, Studio Marconi, Marc Chagall, Disegni inediti dalla Russia a Parigi, May - July 1988; this exhibition later travelled to Turin, Galleria della Sindone, Palazzo Reale, Dec. 1990 - Mar. 1991; Catania, Monastero dei Benedettini, Oct. - Nov. 1994; Meina, Museo e centro studi per il disegno, June - Aug. 1996.
Hannover, Sprengel Museum, Marc Chagall, "Himmel und Erde", Dec. 1996 - Feb. 1997.
Darmstadt, Institut Mathildenhöhe, Marc Chagall, Von Russland nach Paris, Zeichnungen 1906-1967, Dec. 1997 - Jan. 1998.
Abbazia Olivetana, Fondazione Ambrosetti, Marc Chagall, Il messaggio biblico, May - July 1998.
Klagenfurt, Stadtgalerie, Marc Chagall, Feb. - May 2000, p. 18 (ill.).
Florida, Boca Raton Museum of Art, Chagall, Jan. - Mar. 2002.
Special notice
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

Lot Essay

This work is sold with a photo-certificate from David McNeil.

Possibly one of his first drawings after settling in Paris, Chagall shows how he is already well aware of the fauvist and post-impressionist trends inspired by Van Gogh and Gauguin. Playing with the dark brushstrokes to draw thick black outlines and livening up the work with bright touches of blue and green in the centre of the composition, Chagall presents an amusing daily life scene in a dining room.

Chagall proves his freedom from academism in this liberal and expressive drawing, following his first impressions of the Parisian artistic scene. Here, Chagall does not hesitate to interpret a banal subject matter in his own way through style and technique. The impact of Paris on Chagall is clearly expressed in My Life, 'I made my way to the very heart of the French painting of 1910. I attached myself to it. No academy could have given me all I discovered by getting my teeth into the exhibitions, the shop windows, and the museums of Paris' (p. 102).

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