Portrait

Details

Marc Chagall (1887-1985)
Portrait
signed 'Chagall' (lower right)
wax crayon on paper
10½ x 8 1/8 in. (27 x 20.7 cm.)
Executed circa 1925

Provenance

David McNeil (the artist's son), Paris, by descent from the artist (no. D 1139).
Acquired from the above by the present owners in 1987.

Literature

V. Rakitin, Chagall, Disegni inediti dalla Russia a Parigi, Milan, 1989, p. 78 (ill. p. 79).

Exhibited

Milan, Studio Marconi, Marc Chagall, Disegni inediti dalla Russia a Parigi, May - July 1988; this exhibition later travelled to Turin, Galleria della Sindone, Palazzo Reale, Dec. 1990 - Mar. 1991; Catania, Monastero dei Benedettini, Oct.- Nov. 1994; Meina, Museo e centro studi per il disegno, June - Aug. 1996.
Hannover, Sprengel Museum, Marc Chagall, "Himmel und Erde", Dec. 1996 - Feb. 1997.
Darmstadt, Institut Mathildenhöhe, Marc Chagall, Von Russland nach Paris, Zeichnungen 1906-1967, Dec. 1997 - Jan. 1998.
Abbazia Olivetana, Fondazione Ambrosetti, Marc Chagall, Il messaggio biblico, May - July 1998.
Klagenfurt, Stadtgalerie, Marc Chagall, Feb.- May 2000, p. 43 (ill.).
Florida, Boca Raton Museum of Art, Chagall, Jan.- Mar. 2002.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

Lot Essay

This work is sold with a photo-certificate from David McNeil.

Rakitin compares the present lot with a very similar drawing of the same subject dated circa 1922-1923 (Exh. cat., Marc Chagall - Arbeiten auf Papier, Hannover, 1985, no. 93, p. 163). This incredibly expressionistic charcoal drawing is probably one of the most representative of Chagall's second sojourn in Berlin, influenced by contemporary graphic art. The anonymous sitter may have been a friend, yet Chagall's aim was not to portray the figure's individual features, but rather to rapidly sketch the impression this man left Chagall with.

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