- 49
Marc Chagall
Description
- Marc Chagall
- Vue de Paris
- Signed Chagall and dated 1978 (lower right); signed Marc Chagall on the reverse
Oil on canvas
- 39 3/8 by 31 7/8 in.
- 100 by 81 cm
Provenance
Estate of the artist
Acquired from the above
Condition
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.
Catalogue Note
Paris was the city where Chagall spent his formative years as an artist and the place to which he returned after his years in exile in New York during the war. Russian by origin, Chagall considered France his home during the last decades of his life, and he credited its capital as the birthplace the imaginative, whimsical style that defined his career. "In Paris, it seemed to me that there was everything to discover, above all the art of craftsmanship," he recalled (quoted in C. Sorlier, ed., Chagall by Chagall, New York, 1979, p. 92). Chagall saw arඣt throughout the city, even on the façades o♛f the building, such as the fantastic gargoyle on the gothic cathedrals that he has painted in the present work.
"For me," Chagall once explained, "a painting is a surface covered with representations of things (objects, animals, human forms), within a certain framework in which logic and illustration have no importance. There may exist a mysterious fourth or fifth dimension -- perhaps not only of the eye -- that intuitively gives rise to a balance of plastic and psychical contrasts, piercing the eye of the spectator by new and unusual conceptions" (ibid., p. 53).