The present work is a variant in gouache of the large oil painting (175.5 x 116cm.) in the Menil Collection, Houston, executed in 1963 (D. Sylvester ed., René Magritte, catalogue raisonné, London, 1993, Vol. III, no. 969). Of the Menil picture, Sarah Whitfield and Michael Raeburn write: "The earliest reference to this undated work is found in a letter to Bosmans of 29 December 1962 in which Magritte, writing about poetical expression and metaphor, tells him: 'J'expérimente pour ma part ce genre de préoccupation, lorsque de nouvelles possibilités de l'ordre des 'moyens' se découvrent. Ainsi, 'j'hésite' quant à la valeur du sens d'une couleur montrée dans un tableau et qui n'est pas la couleur d'un objet' and he goes on to say, 'J'ai pensé à quelques tableaux où l'on verrait du noir (qui n'est pas la couleur d'un ciel nocturne dans ce cas)' and he indicates with an arrow the first of two sketches, which is the image of the present work. As though to reinforce the metaphorical use of the black between the two windows, he adds, 'par la fenêtre ouverte, ce que l'on voit c'est du 'noir' et non de la 'couleur noire'. Under the second sketch he writes, 'ici, la couleur serait celle d'un objet: un tableau noir'. Informing Bosmans on 29 March that he had found the title, Magritte describes the image as "la fenêtre entreouverte sur l'absence de lumière", a description he also gives to Torczyner in a letter of 24 April, informing him that he is just finishing the painting. Scutenaire found the title, he told us. While the play between indoor and outdoor is a theme that can be traced back to Magritte's early Surrealist imagery, the window opening on to blackness recalls two works of the 1920s by Duchamp: Fresh Window, and Door, 11 rue Lerrey, Paris 1927" (loc. cit., p. 378).

To be included in Volume IV of the René Magritte catalogue raisonné edited by David Sylvester