Marc Chagall

Estate of the artist
Sale: Christie's, New York, May 7, 2008, lot 156
Acquired at the above sale 

Executed on cream wove card, not laid down and t-hinged to the backing board at the upper two corners. The sheet is very gently undulating in places as a result of the thick application of medium. The left and lower edges are deckled and the right edge is slightly unevenly cut. There is a pin hole to the centre of the left and right extreme edges and one to the lower left corner. The colours are bright and fresh and this 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.
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.

Chagall’s enchanting Le Peintre au chevalet à Saint-Paul is an evocative dream-like vision, a composition that captures some of the artist’s most emblematic motifs and illustrates his passion for color and light. Painted in his later years, Le Peintre au chevalet à Saint-Paul stems from a time when the artist was nostalgic for his youth while celebrating the joyful and tranquil life he made in Saint-Paul-de-Vence with his wife Valentina Brodsky.

Chagall found a strong affinity between painting and dreaming, themes beautifully reflected in this composition. An all-encompassing deep blue pigment sets the ethereal stage, meanwhile emphasizing the artist’s pictorial iconography, including the floating figures, bouquets and artist painting a still life. 

Chagall credited his Russian roots as the underlying influences for his motifs, but he believed it was not until his immersion in France’s flourishing artistic milieu that his style reached its pinnacle. He explained, “I painted cows, dairies, roosters, and the architecture of the Russian provinces as a source of forms because all these subjects are part of the country I come from, and these things have without any doubt left in my visual memory a more profound impression than all the others that I may have received…[but] in Russia my pictures were without light. Everything in Russia is dark, brown, gray. Arriving in France, I was struck by the iridescence of color, the play of lights, and I found what I had been blindly seeking, that refinement of the paint and of wanton color” (Marc Chagall, Chagall by Chagall, New York, 1979, p. 78, 99).