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Lot Essay
This work is sold with a photo-certificate from David McNeil.
These characters, carefully and simply outlined, highlight the political as well as autobiographical dimension in Chagall's work. The motif of the policeman or soldier often appears in Chagall's oeuvre, as exemplified by the soldier paintings of 1914, (M 210-216). By depicting these figures of authority, Chagall denounces the discrimination of Jews at the beginning of the century in Russia, a discrimination he had experienced first hand in St Petersburg in 1906, where he had needed a special permit to stay in the city, to work and study, because he was Jewish. In the present drawing he depicts the exclusion of the old Jew and the little girl, who are almost being kicked out of the drawing itself whilst the central soldier turns his back to them.
On a further autobiographical note, Chagall seems to refer, in the central character, to a policeman, who was his neighbour in Vitebsk, when he would visit from St. Petersburg and rent a room. This policeman lived in a small white house with red shutters and always wore a red and white beret in the summer.
These characters, carefully and simply outlined, highlight the political as well as autobiographical dimension in Chagall's work. The motif of the policeman or soldier often appears in Chagall's oeuvre, as exemplified by the soldier paintings of 1914, (M 210-216). By depicting these figures of authority, Chagall denounces the discrimination of Jews at the beginning of the century in Russia, a discrimination he had experienced first hand in St Petersburg in 1906, where he had needed a special permit to stay in the city, to work and study, because he was Jewish. In the present drawing he depicts the exclusion of the old Jew and the little girl, who are almost being kicked out of the drawing itself whilst the central soldier turns his back to them.
On a further autobiographical note, Chagall seems to refer, in the central character, to a policeman, who was his neighbour in Vitebsk, when he would visit from St. Petersburg and rent a room. This policeman lived in a small white house with red shutters and always wore a red and white beret in the summer.