Rene Magritte (1898-1967)

Property from the Collection of ALICE TULLY

Details

Rene Magritte (1898-1967)

Le chef d'orchestre

signed bottom right 'Magritte'--oil on canvas
23¾ x 20in. (60.3 x 50.8cm.)

Painted in 1955

Provenance

Iolas Gallery, New York (acquired from the artist)
Sarah Hunter Kelly, New York (acquired by Alice Tully, 1978)

Literature

ed. R. Magritte, La carte d'après nature, Brussels, no. 7, Oct., 1954
ed. R. Magritte, La carte d'après nature, Brussels, no. 9,
Aug., 1955 (illustrated)
Rhétorique, no. 3, Sept., 1961, pl. 14 (illustrated)
ed. D. Sylvester, René Magritte, Catalogue raisonné, London, 1993, vol. 3 (Oil Paintings, Objects and Bronzes 1949-1967),
no. 815 (illustrated, p. 237)
M. A. Stevens and R. Hoozee, Impressionism to Symbolism, The Belgian Avant-Garde 1880-1900, London, 1994, p. 152 (illustrated)

Lot Essay

In the October, 1954 issue of the review La carte d'après nature, Magritte published a short untitled text in which he sets forth a series of six images: "the egg and the cage, the door and the void, the rose and the dagger, the piano and the ring, the bed-sheet and the moon, the squirrel and its floorboard." As David Sylvester (op. cit.) has recorded, all but the penultimate image are related to extent paintings. "The squirrel and its floorboard" evolved into Le chef d'orchestre.