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Lot Essay
This work is sold with a photo-certificate from the Comité Magritte.
In 1967, René Magritte conceived a group of sculptures to be cast in bronze, taking inspiration from his earlier paintings. This rare cast of Le puits de vérité is one of only five other than the artist’s proof; this example has the further distinction of having remained in the possession of Magritte’s wife, Georgette, after his death; it remained in her collection until after her death.
Le puits de vérité owes its composition to the painting of the same name, which dates from 1962 or 1963. However, this sculpture has transcended the painting that was its inspiration in a manner that few of the other bronzes achieve. Most of the seven other compositions that Magritte selected to be cast in bronze are essentially frontal; they are relief-like renderings of their subjects, and their three-dimensionality is not intended to supplement their interpretation. In the case of Le puits de vérité, however, the isolated trouser-leg and foot of the original oil painting is made all the more striking because of its plastic qualities. In particular, the medium of bronze introduces a playfully irreverent relationship with civic statuary. Deprived of the rest of its body, this leg completely undermines the entire nature of the portraiture and posterity marked by the statues of various dignitaries and heroes that punctuate the urban fabrics of so many cities. Here, instead, we see a leg and show that are not only anonymous, but also provocatively autonomous.
As in the original painting, the ‘framing’ of this composition shows this leg without the context that would be provided by the rest of the body to which one imagines it belongs. In this way, Magritte has managed to create a twist on portraiture that is playful yet mysterious. At the same time, Le puits de vérité serves as an intriguing precursor to the later sculptures of Robert Gober, for instance Untitled Leg of 1989-90, now in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in which the leg protrudes from an otherwise normal wall. This reflects the enduring power of Magritte’s idiosyncratic vision.
In 1967, René Magritte conceived a group of sculptures to be cast in bronze, taking inspiration from his earlier paintings. This rare cast of Le puits de vérité is one of only five other than the artist’s proof; this example has the further distinction of having remained in the possession of Magritte’s wife, Georgette, after his death; it remained in her collection until after her death.
Le puits de vérité owes its composition to the painting of the same name, which dates from 1962 or 1963. However, this sculpture has transcended the painting that was its inspiration in a manner that few of the other bronzes achieve. Most of the seven other compositions that Magritte selected to be cast in bronze are essentially frontal; they are relief-like renderings of their subjects, and their three-dimensionality is not intended to supplement their interpretation. In the case of Le puits de vérité, however, the isolated trouser-leg and foot of the original oil painting is made all the more striking because of its plastic qualities. In particular, the medium of bronze introduces a playfully irreverent relationship with civic statuary. Deprived of the rest of its body, this leg completely undermines the entire nature of the portraiture and posterity marked by the statues of various dignitaries and heroes that punctuate the urban fabrics of so many cities. Here, instead, we see a leg and show that are not only anonymous, but also provocatively autonomous.
As in the original painting, the ‘framing’ of this composition shows this leg without the context that would be provided by the rest of the body to which one imagines it belongs. In this way, Magritte has managed to create a twist on portraiture that is playful yet mysterious. At the same time, Le puits de vérité serves as an intriguing precursor to the later sculptures of Robert Gober, for instance Untitled Leg of 1989-90, now in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in which the leg protrudes from an otherwise normal wall. This reflects the enduring power of Magritte’s idiosyncratic vision.