Marc Chagall

Estate of the Artist
Private Collection
Sale: Christie's, New York, May 8, 2003, lot 226
Private Collection (acquired at the above sale and sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 6, 2004, lot 411)
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Work is in excellent condition. Canvas is not lined. Under UV light: many pigments fluoresce but appear original and no inpainting is apparent. Faint horizontal stretcher bar mark visible across the center.
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The subject of lovers fascinated Chagall from the start of his career.  For him the theme was particularly inspiring because it epitomized the mystical union of two souls.  He often rendered the subject in the blues evident in this work, partly because the color had a spiritual significance in Jewish thought.  Sydney Alexander describes how Chagall's wedding pictures and depictions of lovers can be seen as archetypal descriptions of the eternal relationship between a man and a woman as symbolized by Chagall's many happy years of marriage to his wife Bella, "Frequently erotic, but not obsessively so, as in the case of Picasso, Chagall differs from the Spaniard also in the durability and singleness of his passions.  He never loved but one woman at a time, and his first marriage with Bella Rosenfeld was apparently a blissful union that lasted for twenty-nine years.  Bella's role as muse and manager, vestal virgin and mother, counselor and éminence grise, angel and housekeeper is celebrated in hundreds of paintings.  Her transformed image does not cease to appear, even after her tragic and unexpected death in 1945.  Chagall's eroticism is within the framework of the Jewish family tradition and his attitude toward women was undoubtedly shaped during his growing up years in Vitebsk" (Sidney Alexander, Marc Chagall, A Biography, London, 1979, pp. 62-63).