Portrait de jeune fille

Details

Marc Chagall (1887-1985)
Portrait de jeune fille
signed 'Chagall' (lower right)
pen and ink on paper
10½ x 8 in. (27 x 20.5 cm.)
Executed circa 1930

Provenance

David McNeil (the artist's son), Paris, by descent from the artist (no. D 1549).
Acquired from the above by the present owners in 1987.

Literature

W. Haftmann, Chagall, Gouachen, Zeichnungen, Aquarelle, Cologne, 1975 (ill. pl. 35).
V. Rakitin, Chagall, Disegni inediti dalla Russia a Parigi, Milan, 1989, p. 114 (ill. p. 115).

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. 50 (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.

According to Rakitin, this portrait is one of the finest examples of Chagall's late 1920s pen and ink drawings. Possibly executed in 1927, the slightly caricaturist and dramatic aspect of the female sitter echo the projects on which Chagall was working at the time, particularly his illustrations for the Cirque Vollard and for the Fables de la Fontaine. Chagall gives a comical touch to the woman posing, placing her between the human and the animal world, with her scale-like dress and her undefined arms and hands.

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