Le Profil vert du peintre is a tender self-portrait of the artist, articulated in Chagall’s quintessential oneiric and fluid style. Heady with shades of bright green and indigo, Chagall surrounds his profile with his personal symbolic cosmos - the bride and groom, the flying donkey and the bouquet of flowers. In the foreground the artist holds a palette, but the other hand, rather than holding a paint brush, is positioned upon the artist’s heart. These symbols, which surround the artist in an almost surreal arc of connection, are not preconceived or structured depictions that emerge from a calculated brush, but rather sincere and free outpourings of personal history, love and devotion.

Whilst the work is affectionately inscribed to Chagall’s second wife, Vava, whom he married in 1952, Le Profil vert du peintre also celebrates Chagall’s love for his first wife, Bella, who died in 1944. Chagall never ceased to be obsessed with Bella, and often included brides in his work as a symbol of the purity of their love. The plurality of his affections is overwhelmingly present in Le Profil vert du peintre, in which we see the artist himself inside his domestic studio, dreaming of the past whilst simultaneously embracing the joy of the present.