La grande marée

Details

René Magritte (1898-1967)
La grande marée
signed 'magritte' (lower left), signed, titled and dated 'La Grande Marée Magritte 1946' (on the reverse)
gouache on paper
16 x 233/8in. (40.6 x 59.3cm.)
Executed in 1946

Provenance

Pierre & Léontine Hoyez-Berger, Brussels.
Given to the present owner's aunt by the above in 1949.

Literature

R. Magritte, Titres, 1946.
Letter from Magritte to Salkin, 2 Jan. 1947.
Letter from Magritte to Andrieu, 20 Dec. 1947.
D. Sylvester (ed.), René Magritte Catalogue Raisonné, Gouaches, Temperas, Watercolours and Papiers Collés 1918-1967, London 1994, vol. IV, no. 139, (illustrated p. 324).

Exhibited

Brussels, Galerie Dietrich, Magritte, November-December 1946, no. 10.
New York, Hugo Gallery, René Magritte, April 1948, no. 37 (not shown).

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

'The image was originally called 'High Society' (Le grand monde), but the title has been changed because there was a possibility of it being interpreted as a satire on high society through the presence of a box of cigars.
It is not a question of satire but of a poetic effect. 'Spring Tide' (La grande marée) is the flooding into our field of vision of unknown objects such as the female torso, half flesh, half wood, and the cigar emerging already lit from its box'
(René Magritte, Titres, 1947, quoted from D. Sylvester, René Magritte, Catalogue Raisoné, vol. IV, p. 324.

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