Etudes pour l'au-delà

Details

René Magritte (1898-1967)
Etudes pour l'au-delà
signed 'magritte' (lower left), inscribed and numbered 'Soleil 5' (upper right), inscribed again 'Le soleil brille pour tous' (lower centre)
pencil on paper
10 1/8 x 7 in. (27 x 17.9 cm.)
Executed circa 1938

Provenance

Galerie Isy Brachot, Brussels, no. B127.
Anonymous sale, Christie's, London, 24 June 1996, lot 226A.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

Literature

D. Sylvester, René Magritte, Catalogue raisonné, London, 1993, Vol.II, no.459 Fig.b (illustrated p.265)

Exhibited

Paris, Galerie Isy Brachot, Les dessins de l'atelier Magritte, October - December 1988.
New York, The Pace Gallery, René Magritte: Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture, May - June 1990.
Brussels, Galerie Isy Brachot, René Magritte et la pensée, January - February 1993.

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Lot Essay

As regards the sun, I have found an answer: a grave. On the ground is a grave-stone and the sun illuminates the sky, the earth and the grave. The answer is of the present moment and may become inadequate in the future. Taking the sun as the starting point of the journey we are engaged upon, taking the sun as our origin, we cannot for the time being envisage any more disant conclusion to this journey than death. This is a present certainty, and as the title of the picture, the expresion 'The beyond' recovers an emotional content.

Magritte in a letter to Breton, June 1934

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