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Lot Essay
Marc Chagall’s Les fiancés à l’ange rouge is a lyrical, poetic evocation of love, told through the artist's distinctly personal iconography. Its true marvel lies in Chagall's daring technical experiments. By privileging flat, jewel toned planes over traditional modelling, the artist creates a pictorial space where figures float free of gravity and shadow. Blurring the boundaries between interior and exterior, truth and invention, the painting immerses the viewer in a world of Chagall’s making. A bridal couple is shown embracing as they float above the ground, seemingly unencumbered by gravity or trivial considerations. Through a nearby open window, the rooftops of a town – reminiscent of the artist’s native Vitebsk – are just visible in the darkness. A red angel emerges from an underlayer of crimson to serenade the slowly dancing couple as they soar towards their shared future and all its many possibilities.
In this jubilant 1937-1938 painting, it is easy to recognize Chagall’s bride as his wife Bella Chagall (née Rosenfeld). The two first met in September 1909. It was love at first sight for the young painter, and Chagall later reflected that he felt as if ‘she [had] known me always, my childhood, my future; as if she were watching over me, divining my innermost being, though this is the first time I [had] seen her. I knew this [was] she, my wife’ (quoted in J. Wullschlager, Chagall: Love and Exile, London, 2008, p. 89). They married in July of 1915, with Bella quickly becoming an essential presence within Chagall’s oeuvre – a symbol of love, optimism, and hope.
In the foreground of Les fiancés à l’ange rouge, the marriage bouquet of pink roses blooms luxuriously. With their pale pink petals and verdant foliage rendered in impasto brushwork, the flowers almost fill the room. Their exaggerated size, compared to the other objects depicted, gives the work an otherworldly quality. Chagall often used flowers to symbolise romantic love, but they also suggest a broader, more expansive hope. ‘To see the world through bouquets!’ rhapsodised E. Tériade, a friend of the artist’s. ‘Huge, monstrous bouquets in ringing profusion, haunting brilliance. Were we to see him only through these abundances gathered at random from gardens, harmonized who knows how, and naturally balanced, we could wish for no more precious joy!’ (‘Chagall and Romantic Painting,’ 1926, reproduced in J. Baal-Teshuva, ed., Chagall: A Retrospective, New York, 1995, p. 136).
By framing the lovers within an open window, Chagall collapses interior and exterior realms, suggesting that memory, fantasy, and domestic life coexist within the same pictorial plane. The layered warm hues of the background contribute to the atemporal atmosphere and further unify the inner and outer worlds. In this way, far from merely evoking nostalgia, Chagall transforms personal mementos into structured motifs, using memory as a tool for formal innovation. Across his canvas, he refracts these mementos and arranges his recollections ‘according to an order dictated by his soul’ (ibid.).
Further contributing to this timeless atmosphere is the colour palette that Chagall used to paint Les fiancés à l’ange rouge. Soft tonalities suffuse the intimate canvas, as velvety brushwork defines the architecture and sky just beyond the windowpane. Blurring the boundaries between interior and exterior, truth and invention, the painting immerses the viewer in a mythical world of Chagall’s making.
In this jubilant 1937-1938 painting, it is easy to recognize Chagall’s bride as his wife Bella Chagall (née Rosenfeld). The two first met in September 1909. It was love at first sight for the young painter, and Chagall later reflected that he felt as if ‘she [had] known me always, my childhood, my future; as if she were watching over me, divining my innermost being, though this is the first time I [had] seen her. I knew this [was] she, my wife’ (quoted in J. Wullschlager, Chagall: Love and Exile, London, 2008, p. 89). They married in July of 1915, with Bella quickly becoming an essential presence within Chagall’s oeuvre – a symbol of love, optimism, and hope.
In the foreground of Les fiancés à l’ange rouge, the marriage bouquet of pink roses blooms luxuriously. With their pale pink petals and verdant foliage rendered in impasto brushwork, the flowers almost fill the room. Their exaggerated size, compared to the other objects depicted, gives the work an otherworldly quality. Chagall often used flowers to symbolise romantic love, but they also suggest a broader, more expansive hope. ‘To see the world through bouquets!’ rhapsodised E. Tériade, a friend of the artist’s. ‘Huge, monstrous bouquets in ringing profusion, haunting brilliance. Were we to see him only through these abundances gathered at random from gardens, harmonized who knows how, and naturally balanced, we could wish for no more precious joy!’ (‘Chagall and Romantic Painting,’ 1926, reproduced in J. Baal-Teshuva, ed., Chagall: A Retrospective, New York, 1995, p. 136).
By framing the lovers within an open window, Chagall collapses interior and exterior realms, suggesting that memory, fantasy, and domestic life coexist within the same pictorial plane. The layered warm hues of the background contribute to the atemporal atmosphere and further unify the inner and outer worlds. In this way, far from merely evoking nostalgia, Chagall transforms personal mementos into structured motifs, using memory as a tool for formal innovation. Across his canvas, he refracts these mementos and arranges his recollections ‘according to an order dictated by his soul’ (ibid.).
Further contributing to this timeless atmosphere is the colour palette that Chagall used to paint Les fiancés à l’ange rouge. Soft tonalities suffuse the intimate canvas, as velvety brushwork defines the architecture and sky just beyond the windowpane. Blurring the boundaries between interior and exterior, truth and invention, the painting immerses the viewer in a mythical world of Chagall’s making.