Shhrazade

In a letter to his friend Marcel Marin dated 9 August 1946, Magritte mentioned that he began reading The Thousand and One Nights, the Middle Eastern classic in which Shhrazade, wife of the sultan of India, must recount to her husband an interesting tale each night or confront death in the morning. In that same year Magritte produced an oil painting titled Les Mille et une nuits (Sylvester, no. 611; Private Collection, Brussels), in which two towers frame a sunrise, referring to the critical hour that Shhrazade faces each morning. The following year Magritte embarked on a series of small gouaches, including the present work, in which the narrator of the tales is reduced to her most suggestive facial features--her made-up eyes and lips--interwoven with strands of pearls. These gouaches were painted in Magritte's 'Impressionist' style, in keeping with his current search for the "bright side of life". The artist, disguising himself in the third person, wrote:

"The series of little gouaches which show eyes and mouths set in pearls enriched our minds with a new concept which forces reason to draw back its frontiers...The new aspect of the world that M.'s painting aims to acquaint us with had necessarily to appear in an atmosphere different from that of his previous works. This new aspect of what once appeared severe and disturbing had to prove its strength through being able also to smile and to charm. This is why the impressionist technique was appropriate to M.'s new pictures thanks to the possibilities it affords." (ed. M. Marin, Rene Magritte: Manifestes et autres ecrits, Brussels, 1972, pp. 91-91 [translated by John Weightman])