Marc Chagall

Galerie Maeght, Paris
Sale: Christie's, London, June 27, 1978, lot 75
Gekkoso Gallery, Tokyo
Private Collection, Japan (acquired from the above in 1980)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Tokyo, Odaku Museum; Himeji City Museum of Art; Tsu, Mie Prefectural Art Museum & Yamaguchi Prefectural Art Museum, Marc Chagall, 1992-93
Fukuoka Art Museum; Nagoya, Matsuzakaya Art Museum; Iwaki City Art Museum; Kagoshima City Museum of Art & Chiba, SOGO Museum of Art, Marc Chagall, 1997
Tokyo, Daimaru Museum; Osaka, Daimaru Museum & Kyoto, Daimaru Museum, Marc Chagall, 1998
Utsunomiya Museum of Art; Tsu, Mie Prefectural Art Museum & Chiba, Chiba City Museum of Art, Marc Chagall and Jewish Mysticism, 2007
Karuizawa, Musée d'art Mercian, Marc Chagall "Legend of Bouquet Exhibition," 2008

The canvas is not lined and there appear to be no traces of retouching visible under UV light. Some very gentle and minor frame rubbing to the extreme edges. 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.

During Chagall’s years in France, his subjects were divided between those inspired by his adopted country and those reminiscent of his native Russia. The present composition is a perfectly balanced combination between the colors of the South of France and the symbols of his country of birth and Jewish heritage.  

Brides and grooms repeatedly appear in Chagall’s art throughout the span of his eighty-year career. Seemingly enchanted by the symbolic interlocking of two souls in matrimony, the artist’s happy marriage to his childhood sweetheart Bella, ending only with her death in 1944, compounded his fascination with the subject. The presence of a bride in a white gown in the present work is a poignant evocation of his happy relationship. The couple hover in a sky with familiar elements of Chagall’s visual vocabulary: a floating goat, a candelabra, a man offering the young couple a bouquet, the sun and, finally, a violin player.

The imagery of the present work furthermore displays the artist’s unrelenting preoccupation with his Russian heritage and Jewish ancestry. As the couple celebrates their union under the Chuppah, the candelabra and Vitebsk in the background further heighten the artist’s nostalgic references to his Jewish hometown. His recurrent use of specific symbols has long illustrated the particular world of his vivid imagination, clearly evident in Vision des mariés, but the present work also evokes a sense of personal melancholy and longing; perhaps the passing of time. In the 1970s, when Chagall and Vava went to Russia, he refused to visit his hometown of Vitebsk. He said: “at 86 years old, there are memories which one should not disturb. I have not seen Vitebsk for sixty years. What I should see there today would be incomprehensible to me. And moreover, that which forms one of the living elements of my painting would prove to be nonexistent” (quoted in Jackie Wullschlager, Chagall, Love and Exile, London, 2008, p. 513).