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Lot Essay
There is a red pencil study of the bird on the reverse.
Magritte first produced the image of Les fanatiques in an oil of 1955 (Sylvester, no. 823). Hodes received this gouache with four others sent by Magritte in March 1961, and the collector presumably commissioned it in the preceding months. Although the eagle, fire and rocks were common to Magritte's vocabulary, their juxtaposition as found here may have been inspired by alchemical imagery, and the ancient myth of the phoenix perishing in fire and rising again from its ashes.
Magritte first produced the image of Les fanatiques in an oil of 1955 (Sylvester, no. 823). Hodes received this gouache with four others sent by Magritte in March 1961, and the collector presumably commissioned it in the preceding months. Although the eagle, fire and rocks were common to Magritte's vocabulary, their juxtaposition as found here may have been inspired by alchemical imagery, and the ancient myth of the phoenix perishing in fire and rising again from its ashes.