Lot Essay
In 1927 de Chirico first painted the subject of furniture set in a landscape during his second sojourn in Paris. He later recalled:
The series of my paintings of "Furniture in the
landscape" came out of an idea I got one afternoon
in Paris, passing through the Saint-Germain quarter,
between the rue du Dragon and the rue du Vieux-
Colombier. I saw there on the sidewalk, in front of
the shop of a second-hand furniture dealer, some
armchairs, chairs, wardrobes, and a clothes-stand
abandoned on the street. These things, just the
sight of which arouses in us sensations and feelings
that are rooted back in our more distant childhood,
found so far from the sacred place where man has
always loved to retreat for rest and which we call
our home, took on a solemn, tragic, and even
mysterious aspect. (G. de Chirico, Quelques
perspectives sur mon art; translated and reprinted
in P. Baldacci, Giorgio de Chirico: Betraying the
Muse, catalogue for the Pablo Baldacci Gallery
exhibition, New York, 1994)
The procedure de Chirico adopts in this picture as that of simple "displacement." He removes objects from their common, mundane context and deposits them in an alien landscape dotted with the symbols of antiquity. While in Prague in 1935 he wrote an article about the meanings he associates with furniture.
Furniture, removed from the atmosphere of our
bedrooms and exibited outdoors, arouses in us
an emotion which places the street in a new
light as well.
Placing furniture in deserted places, in the
middle of a landscape, also evokes a profound
impression. One can imagine an armchair, a
sofa, some chairs gathered in the middle of a
plain in Greece, deserted and covered with
ruins, or on a prairie in far-away America.
(G. de Chirico, "Statues, Meubles et Généraux,"
Bulletin de l'Effort Moderne, Paris, no. 38,
Oct., 1937, pp. 3-6)
The series of my paintings of "Furniture in the
landscape" came out of an idea I got one afternoon
in Paris, passing through the Saint-Germain quarter,
between the rue du Dragon and the rue du Vieux-
Colombier. I saw there on the sidewalk, in front of
the shop of a second-hand furniture dealer, some
armchairs, chairs, wardrobes, and a clothes-stand
abandoned on the street. These things, just the
sight of which arouses in us sensations and feelings
that are rooted back in our more distant childhood,
found so far from the sacred place where man has
always loved to retreat for rest and which we call
our home, took on a solemn, tragic, and even
mysterious aspect. (G. de Chirico, Quelques
perspectives sur mon art; translated and reprinted
in P. Baldacci, Giorgio de Chirico: Betraying the
Muse, catalogue for the Pablo Baldacci Gallery
exhibition, New York, 1994)
The procedure de Chirico adopts in this picture as that of simple "displacement." He removes objects from their common, mundane context and deposits them in an alien landscape dotted with the symbols of antiquity. While in Prague in 1935 he wrote an article about the meanings he associates with furniture.
Furniture, removed from the atmosphere of our
bedrooms and exibited outdoors, arouses in us
an emotion which places the street in a new
light as well.
Placing furniture in deserted places, in the
middle of a landscape, also evokes a profound
impression. One can imagine an armchair, a
sofa, some chairs gathered in the middle of a
plain in Greece, deserted and covered with
ruins, or on a prairie in far-away America.
(G. de Chirico, "Statues, Meubles et Généraux,"
Bulletin de l'Effort Moderne, Paris, no. 38,
Oct., 1937, pp. 3-6)