Alexandre Iolas, Paris (acquired from the artist in June 1957)
Galerie Rudolf Zwirner, Cologne (acquired from the above by 1965)
Acquired by the father of the present owner in the 1960s

Tournai, Halle au Draps, Ve salon triennal des Beaux-Arts du Hainaut, 1957, no. 69
Paris, Galerie Cahiers d'Art, René Magritte, 1958, no. 8
New York, Iolas Gallery, René Magritte, 1959
Dallas, Museum for Contemporary Arts & Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, René Magritte in America, 1960-61, no. 62
Knokke, Casino Communal, XVe festival belge d'été: L'Œuvre de René Magritte, 1962, no. 92
Milan, Galleria Schwarz, Magritte, 1962
Rome, L'Attico, Magritte, 1963
Geneva, Galerie Alexander Iolas, Magritte, 1963
London, Hanover Gallery, René Magritte, 1964, no. 7, illustrated in the catalogue
Paris, Galerie Alexandre Iolas, Magritte: le sens propre, 1964, no. 6
Cologne, Galerie Rudolf Zwirner, 1965

Maurice Rapin, tract 'Nature et mystère', Paris, 22nd January 1958, illustrated
Letter from Magritte to Rapin, 26th May 1957
René Magritte (exhibition catalogue), Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1965, illustrated p. 17
Harry Torczyner, Magritte, Ideas and Images, New York, 1977, no. 455, illustrated p. 206
David Sylvester (ed.), Sarah Whitfield & Michael Raeburn, René Magritte, Catalogue raisonné, London, 1993, vol. III, no. 854, illustrated p. 269

The canvas is unlined and there is no evidence of retouching visible under ultra-violet light, this work is in very good original condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although the stone and buildings are less red in the original.
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La fortune faite takes the viewer into the mysterious world of Magritte's marvellous imagination. In a moonlit street stands a colossal monument that marks the immutability of humanity craving for satiation, 'something to eat / something to drink'. The wooden crate to the left of the stone has all the dimensions of a coffin𒐪, which by its proximity bestows upon the monolith the dignity of a headstone. However the eagles head mounting the stone lends an imperial air to the scene, lifting normality into the extraordinary world of Surrealism.

The gradual development of this enigmatic subject was chronicled in a letter between Magritte and André Bosmans in April 1959; the artist explained that 'for the development of La fontaine de jouvance I can say that it began about 1933-34; I was trying to paint a mountain and thought of giving it a bird's shape and calling this image Le domaine d'Arnheim [fig. 2], the title of one of Poe's stories. Poe would have liked seeing this mountain (he shows us landscapes and mountains in his story). Fortune faite and La fontaine de jouvance are stones bearing such inscriptions as 'Coblenz', 'Rousseau'... 'à boire', 'à manger', as in Fortune faite. These can be seen as a little piece of Le domaine d'Arnheim' (quoted in Harry Torczyner, op. cit., p. 205).

Magritte began working on the present work in the spring of 1957. He wrote a letter to his friend, Maurice Rapin, a painter and patron of Surrealist art, in which he included a sketch of the present work, and explained 'it's an old stone with an inscription in a street under a starry sky. Scutenaire and Colinet are ill with pleasure about it' (quoted in David Sylvester (ed.), op. cit., p. 269).  James Thrall Soby noted that 'Magritte, like Ernst, has always had an obsessive interest in birds... even more he paints eagles. They crown cemetery monuments with their vast wings in Fortune Made.' He continued to discuss the role of calcification in Magritte's œuvre, explaining that the painter is not wilfully trying to baffle his audience, rather that, 'Magritte's art is essentially direct rather than allusive and this is its hypnotic charm. The observer shakes his head in disbelief and then accepts with pride, like a moose balancing the candelabra of new antlers sprouting from its head' (J. T. Soby in René Magritte (exhibition catalogue), op. cit., 1965, pp. 16-17).

Magritte's ability to endow his images with both eloquent🐭 figuration and visual density ൲is due in part to his masterful blend of the viewer's visual intuition and an element of subversion. The avian attributes of flight and freedom are therefore undermined by the setting of stone, or calcification. These properties are incompatible in reality, but in the symbolism of dreams, and thus in Magritte's art, the combination of oxymoronic imagery creates physical beauty and intellectual profundity.

 

Fig. 1, René ꦓMagritte at the Iolas Gallery with the present work, 1964

Fig. 2, René Magritte, Le Domaine d'Arnheim, 1962, oil on 𓆏canvas, Musée Magritte Museum, Les Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruss꧒els