Lot Essay
"It was in Toulon in 1924, Chagall recalls, that the charm of French flowers first struck him. He claims he had not known bouquets of flowers in Russia - or at least they were not so common as in France...He said that when he painted a bouquet it was as if he was painting a landscape. It represented France to him. But the discovery was also a logical one in the light of the change taking place in his vision and pictorial interests. Flowers, especially mixed bouquets of tiny blossoms, after a variety of delicate colour combinations and a fund of texture contrasts which were beginning to hold Chagall's attention more and more." (J. J. Sweeny, Marc Chagall, New York, 1946, p. 56).
Chagall started to work on numerous flower pictures from about 1928 and from then on the theme was to be repeated throughout his life. "Many are simple still-lifes with a bunch of red roses and white lilacs; in others, pairs of lovers and air-borne fiddlers gambol through space. The atmosphere encompasses and pervades the flowers like a magically light, airy fluid, vibrant with their vitality." (F. Meyer, Marc Chagall, London, 1964, p. 369).
Painted with an unsual attention to detail, the present picture most probably depicts Chagall and his wife Bella, a common theme in his finest paintings of lovers since L'Anniversaire of 1915 and his slightly later Au-dessus de la Ville series (see lot 23) of 1915 and 1923. Les Amoureux au Bouquet de Fleurs is far more lyrical than many of the larger format oils due to a combination of its size, its colours and its brushwork: it is small and intimate, the colours have been softened with tempera and there is an attention to detail in the faces of the lovers and such areas as the woman's dress, which one rarely sees in the brasher, colourist large-scale paintings.
By the time the present painting was finished in 1936, Chagall had moved to a new house at 4, Villa Eugène Manuel, near the Trocadéro. According to Meyer, "One is tempted to link the new natural sensuousness of Chagall's art with the happy turn in his personal affairs...the painter's material situation was once again secure..In 1937 he had become a French citizen...The general mood in Paris was also more relaxed despite current world events...Like a gentle yet powerful current the new mood brings the pictures to life, penetrates their remotest corners and moved every single figure." (op. cit., p. 422)
Chagall started to work on numerous flower pictures from about 1928 and from then on the theme was to be repeated throughout his life. "Many are simple still-lifes with a bunch of red roses and white lilacs; in others, pairs of lovers and air-borne fiddlers gambol through space. The atmosphere encompasses and pervades the flowers like a magically light, airy fluid, vibrant with their vitality." (F. Meyer, Marc Chagall, London, 1964, p. 369).
Painted with an unsual attention to detail, the present picture most probably depicts Chagall and his wife Bella, a common theme in his finest paintings of lovers since L'Anniversaire of 1915 and his slightly later Au-dessus de la Ville series (see lot 23) of 1915 and 1923. Les Amoureux au Bouquet de Fleurs is far more lyrical than many of the larger format oils due to a combination of its size, its colours and its brushwork: it is small and intimate, the colours have been softened with tempera and there is an attention to detail in the faces of the lovers and such areas as the woman's dress, which one rarely sees in the brasher, colourist large-scale paintings.
By the time the present painting was finished in 1936, Chagall had moved to a new house at 4, Villa Eugène Manuel, near the Trocadéro. According to Meyer, "One is tempted to link the new natural sensuousness of Chagall's art with the happy turn in his personal affairs...the painter's material situation was once again secure..In 1937 he had become a French citizen...The general mood in Paris was also more relaxed despite current world events...Like a gentle yet powerful current the new mood brings the pictures to life, penetrates their remotest corners and moved every single figure." (op. cit., p. 422)