René Magritte (1898-1967)

Le gouffre argenté

Details

René Magritte (1898-1967)
Le gouffre argenté
signed 'Magritte' (lower right), signed again and titled 'le gouffre argenté' (on the stretcher)
oil on canvas
29½ x 25½in. (75 x 65cm.)
Painted in 1926

Provenance

Sacha Goemans, Paris, 1927.
René Gaffé, Brussels.
Edouard-Léon-Théodore Mesens, Brussels.
Acquired by Sir Roland Penrose, London, 1937.
Given by the above as a wedding gift to the present owners in 1947.

Literature

D. Sylvester & S. Whitfield, René Magritte, Catalogue raisonné, vol. I: Oil Paintings 1916-1930, London, 1992, no. 87 (illustrated p. 174).

Exhibited

Brussels, Galerie Le Centaure, Exposition Magritte, April-May, 1927 no. 15.
Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Trois peintres surréalistes: René Magritte, Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, Dec. 1937, no. 1.
London, London Gallery, René Magritte: Surrealist Paintings and Objects, April-May 1938, no. 4 (illustrated p. 7). .
London, Arcade Gallery, Surrealist diversity 1915-1945, Oct. 1945, no. 12.
Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Rétropsective Magritte, Oct.-Dec. 1978, no. 15. This exhibition later travelled to Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Jan.-April 1979.
London, The Hayward Gallery, South Bank Centre, Magritte, May-Aug. 1992, no. 12 (illustrated in colour). This exhibition later travelled to New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sept.-Nov. 1992, Houston, the Menil Collection, Dec. 1992-Feb. 1993 and Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, March-May 1993.

Sale room notice

This painting has been requested for the major Magritte exhibition celebrating the centenary of the Artist's birth to take place at the Musee Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, from March to June 1998.

Lot Essay

David Sylvester and Sarah Whitfield note that "the present work's iconography is at once retrospective and prophetic. The polychrome bilboquet and the block painted with eyes are characteristic of the end of 1925 and the beginning of 1926. The jigsaw shape of the hole in the wall occurs frequently ....in paintings of a later part of 1926 and of 1927; the bell was to become one of the most frequently recurrent motifs in all Magritte's work". (D. Sylvester & S. Whitfield, op. cit).

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