Galerie Jan Krugier, Geneva

Munich, Kunsthalle de Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Marc Chagall, 1991,
no. 14
Mexico City, Centro Cultural Arte Contemporáneo, Chagall en Nuestro Tiempo (Chagall in Our Time), 1991-92, no. 116
Germany, Neue Galerie der Stadt Linz, Marc Chagall, 1994, no. 29
Bern, Kunstmuseum Bern; New York, The Jewish Museum & Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Chagall 1907-1917, 1997, no. 106
Roslyn Harbor, Nassau County Museum of Art, Marc Chagall, 1998

Alexander Dückers, Linie, Licht und Schatten. Meisterzeichnungen aus der Sammlung Jan und Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski, Berlin, 1999, illustrated p. 398

Sheet is laid down on artist's board, which is slightly warped on on right side. Spots of discoloration, which appear to be water stains. Under UV light, no evidence of inpainting. Work is in good condition.
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Chagall executed the present work around 1914, after he returned from a three year sojourn in Paris. Le Peintre et son village Lyosno is a lyrical work from a pivotal period in Chagall's career as an artist. He left his home in Vitebsk in 1910 and settled in Paris in summer of 1911. After having spent his formative years in Russia away from the influence of the Western avant-garde, Chagall was "captivated by the moderation and taste of French art" (quoted in Marc Chagall (exhibition catalogue), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2003, p. 27). Chagall was mindful of thꦑe ꦏcurrent aesthetic movements that were underway in Paris but was also considering the significance of these developments with regard to his own Russian heritage. 

The log cabin that dominates the center of the composition recalls the artist's parental home in Vitebsk and the man seated in the lower right is a self-portrait. The goa♔t towards the center is a subject that Chagall included in many of his paintings throughout his life and is a reference to the rural character of his childhood. The artist deliberately sets up the dizzying perspectives and fairy-tale quality in the work, imbuing it with an atmosphere of multiple meanings and associations that disorient the viewer, as if he or she is seeing the Russian village from a dislocating aerial perspective.