Marc Chagall

Sale: Shinwa Art Auction, Japan, July 14, 2007, lot 100

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Very good condition. Oil on paper laid down on canvas, most likely prepared by the artist. There is a small disturbance in extreme upper right corner, possibly as a result of a crease in the paper, otherwise this work has a rich impasto and is in very good condition. Under UV light, no retouching is apparent.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Souvenir d'hiver is a quintessential example of Chagall's mastery in assembling an array of folkloric images in a dense and colorful composition. This work contains several of the most crucial elements in the artist's pictorial iconography: symbols of his agrarian roots and domesticity and a landscape evoking both the poor villages of his childhood home in Russia and the Mediterranean coastal towns in the south of France. Each figure is masterfully rendered through a matrix of intense color and spatial experimentation that epitomized Chagall's work, reflecting his own very personal delight in the act of painting.

The central figures dominating the composition are a pair of lovers - a reference to the love of his youth and deceased wife Bella. In his most imaginative paintings, Chagall consistently drew from a vocabulary of personal symbolism.  We see several of these stock characters in this work, including the musician, the maternal figure at lower left and the cock.  But it is the lovers who command center stage in this picture.  Love and marriage were an important part of Chagall's life, as well as a recurring theme in his painting. His first great love, Bella Rosenfeld, was also from the artist's native Vitebsk, and remained a powerful symbol of his homeland, while his second wife, Vava Brodsky, was always associated for Chagall with France, where he lived at the time and where the two met. These highly personal and romantic symbols of his life both in Russia and in France are harmoniously combined in the present composition.