Giorgio de Chirico

Paul Guillaume, Paris
Dikran G. Kelekian
Collection Lacoste, Paris (acquired circa 1947)
Galerie Metthey, Paris
Sale: Hotel Rameau, Versailles, 3rd December 1961, Lot 56
Collection Vogel, Paris (acquired from the above)
Sale: Hotel Rameau, Versailles, 3 June 1970, Lot 12
Galleria Arco Farnese, Rome
Mario Cambi, Rome
Acquired from the above by the present owner circa 1990

Tokyo, Odakyu Grand Gallery Shinjuku, Giorgio de Chirico, 1989
Rome, Museo del Corso, La famiglia nell'arte. Storia e immagini nell'Italia del XX secolo, 2002-03
Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, La Natura secondo de Chirico, 2010, p. 119, no. 40, illustrated in colour

Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco & Paolo Baldacci, Giorgio de Chirico, Parigi 1924-1929, dalla nasita del Surrealismo al crollo di Wall Street, Milan, 1982, p. 529, no. 172, illustrated

The canvas does not appear to be lined. There is an unattached loose dust canvas to support the original canvas.There is a very thin and skilfully executed 5cm long diagonal line of retouching to the centre of the parapet of the white house, visible under UV light. Otherwise, the work is in overall very good 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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

La Maison aux volets verts, circa 1927, is a remarkable example of many of De Chirico's most celebrated artistic elements. The viewer is invited into a disorientating world, and is immediately forced to perceive commonplace imagery with fresh eyes. Inside this quiet house, there is another house, and its garden too. A glimpse through the door to the next room reveals a similar scene, where scale is irrational and the relationship between exterior and interior is wonderfully ambiguous. The scene is imbued with de Chirico's characteristic dreamlike atmosphere, in which time seems to have been suspended: a positively tangible atmosphere that distinguishes the artist's most successful works.

The process of the displacement of an object from its original context was a primary concern for much of the twentieth century artistic avant-garde: it was Marcel Duchamp's raison d'être, the pillar of the Illusionist branch of Surrealism, and is still being used to challenge common perceptions in contemporary art to this day. In the present work, de Chirico has put a house and garden in an unexpected context, thereby completely altering the way that we look at that house and garden, and fulfilling his 'search for a second identity in objects' (William Rubin, 'De Chirico and Modernism', in De Chirico (exhibition catalogue), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1982, p. 57). A painting of a house in its usual context would illicit the commonplace associations, but by placing a house within a house, we are literally cornered into viewing (or rather re-viewing) our psychological relationship to a house, as well as considering the house as a metaphor. Interpreting the painting becomes 'a matter of the viewer's intuition, his ability to appreciate the resonance of the image's interwoven poetic and plastic incongruities' (ibid., p. 57).

A house can be a very free-form metaphor. It can be the unconscious mind, a container, a structure, a machine, an interior, a cage, an egg, a womb, a cave. It can be comforting or claustrophobic, evoke feelings of independence or dependence. The metaphor of the house is fertile ground for artistic exploration, a springboard that has created some of the most powerful images of twentieth century art. Magritte was perhaps the most exhaustive in his exploration of the interior/exterior theme and nodded to the present work when he painted L'Éloge de la dialectique, 1937.

Though many artists have focused on the claustrophobic character of the 'house' or 'room', the present work is dreamlike and unthreatening. It might well be a disorientating space, but it is not an anxious one. De Chirico's haunting piazza paintings suggest that the artist is more agoraphobic than claustrophobic. In the spirit of German Expressionists, such as Edvard Munch, the vertigo of the outside world overwhelms de Chirico, whose gravitation towards, and fascination for, Italian city squares might be explained by their reassuring capacity to enclose. The pastel palette of La Maison aux volets verts further contributes to the whimsical and appealing atmosphere of the scene. We are invited into a house that we are desperate to explore. De Chirico teases us with a glimpse of the next room, hinting at a labyrinth beyond eyeshot. Georges Perec has described the house as 'a vacuum full of promise', a suitably open-ended description for the present work. De Chirico is asking the viewer to be astonished by that which has ceased to astonish us, and the present work is testament to this important quest.