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Lot Essay
This work is sold with a photo-certificate from the the Comité Marc Chagall.
The image of flying lovers first emerged in Chagall's celebrated painting, L'anniversaire of 1915, and thereafter became a symbol of his undying love for his wife, Bella. Even after her death in 1944, this tender depiction continued to pervade the artist's work, becoming a visual reference to the love he and Bella shared. The genesis of this subject likely comes from a story Bella recounted in her memoirs, in which she remembered as a child watching a wedding take place in her local town. She described the bride was like 'a bright cloud first and foremost. A long white dress that trailed along the ground like something living, the whole covered by an airy veil. Through it, as through glass, the bride seemed far away' (quoted in S. Compton, exh. cat., Chagall, Royal Academy of Art, London, 1985, p. 222).
Frequently, and as seen in the present work, animals are included in Chagall's compositions. In Les promis au soleil jaune, the wedding couple are seen astride a donkey and a half-man, half-fish form is seen in the upper right corner. Chagall, who long-identified with horses and other barnyard animals from his childhood experiences on his grandfather's stable, was quoted as saying: 'I could race on a horse for the first time and the last time, to the brilliant arena of life' (quoted in exh. cat., Chagall, A Retrospective, New York, 1995, p. 74).
As is typical of the artist's late work, the theme of Les promis au soleil jaune is neither strictly narrative nor folkloristic. The subject matter and forms swirl together and the symbolic reading seems to grow out of the rhythmic organisation, with the married couple at centre, to whom the rest defer.
The image of flying lovers first emerged in Chagall's celebrated painting, L'anniversaire of 1915, and thereafter became a symbol of his undying love for his wife, Bella. Even after her death in 1944, this tender depiction continued to pervade the artist's work, becoming a visual reference to the love he and Bella shared. The genesis of this subject likely comes from a story Bella recounted in her memoirs, in which she remembered as a child watching a wedding take place in her local town. She described the bride was like 'a bright cloud first and foremost. A long white dress that trailed along the ground like something living, the whole covered by an airy veil. Through it, as through glass, the bride seemed far away' (quoted in S. Compton, exh. cat., Chagall, Royal Academy of Art, London, 1985, p. 222).
Frequently, and as seen in the present work, animals are included in Chagall's compositions. In Les promis au soleil jaune, the wedding couple are seen astride a donkey and a half-man, half-fish form is seen in the upper right corner. Chagall, who long-identified with horses and other barnyard animals from his childhood experiences on his grandfather's stable, was quoted as saying: 'I could race on a horse for the first time and the last time, to the brilliant arena of life' (quoted in exh. cat., Chagall, A Retrospective, New York, 1995, p. 74).
As is typical of the artist's late work, the theme of Les promis au soleil jaune is neither strictly narrative nor folkloristic. The subject matter and forms swirl together and the symbolic reading seems to grow out of the rhythmic organisation, with the married couple at centre, to whom the rest defer.