Robert Elkon (acquired from the artist)
Timothy Baum (acquired from the above)
Acquired from the above in September, 1966

Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1970-71 (on loan)
Philadelphia, Institute of Contemporary Art, Inside Philadelphia, 1972

The present work has the same figural composition as Magritte's painting from 1964, L'homme au chapeau melon, which is documented in the catalogue raisonné of the artist's work (see: D. Sylvester (ed.), 🌳no. 1002).

Writing of the related oil, Ulf Küster speaks to the anonymity of the composition's central figure, his features mostly hidden by the dove, clad in the eponymous bowler hat so much identified with the artist's oeuvre: "The subject of the painting is a man whose individuality is masked beneath a sort of uniform, captured the instant in which a passing dove obscures his face and, with it, any expression of individuality. To portray a short and fleeting moment seems to be the intention, but the bird does not give the impression of flight. It is as if the dove were a mask" (René Magritte: The Key to Dreams (exhibition catalogue), Vienna, 2005, p. 170).