Robert Elkon Gallery, New York
Byron Gallery, New York (and sold: Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, May 17, 1979, lot 497)
Private Collection (acquired at the above sale)
Thence by descent

New York, Byron Gallery, Magritte Exhibition, 1968, no. 41

David Sylvester, ed., René Magritte, Catalogue raisonné, gouaches, temperas, watercolours and papier collés 1918-1967, vol. IV, London, 1994, no. 1589, illustrated p. 287

Work is in excellent condition. Executed on cream wove paper. Taped to a window mount at all four corners on verso. Small horizontal outline of water spot just below top of key is likely original to artist's process. A few small studio stains on verso. Colors are extremely bright and fresh.
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The present gouache (of which there is also a version in oil) was executed in late 1966, though Magritte had conceived of this composition as early as November of 1965. In a letter from that month to his friend the art historian Volker Kahmen (see fig. 1), Magritte sketched the layout for Le sourire du diable and wrote:

"I've thought of painting an image that is a kind of trap (I've just realized it, I didn't conceive this image as a trap). The trap in question has to do with the inevitable question that people who like symbols will be sure to ask, and in so doing think about everything (in a symbolic sense) but the absolute thought that this image describes.
As for the imagination, it must be remembered that everything imagined is not always imaginary. The poet (writer or painter) imagines descriptions of absolute thought—inspired and spontaneous. It would be ridiculous to pretend that that thought is some imaginary 'entity' lacking any certain reality" (English translation in Harry Torczyner, Magritte, Ideas and Images, New York, 1977, p. 261).

Indeed, the seemingly straightforward imagery of Le sourire du diable in fact conjures a sense of profound mystery and yearning. Magritte positions the viewer as a curious voyeur, peering through the keyhole of a heavy wooden door into a forbiddꦦen space, to which access is granted only by a key which is either too distant to reach, or to small to fit the lock. An alternate version done the same year in colored pencil shows a blue sky dotted with clouds in the space beyond the k♊ey, suggesting an idyllic alternate universe might lie beyond this wooden barrier at the edge of reality.

Accounting for the delay between th🎀e conception of this piece and its execution was a severe bout of rheuꩲmatism in Magritte's right hand. With this in mind, the flawlessly rendered wood grain and trompe l'oeil perfection of the glinting key are all the more impressive.

Fig. 1 Letter from the artist to Volker Kahmen dated le 23 Novembre 1965