Marc Chagall

Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco
Acquired from the above

Oil on panel; the panel is sound. The impasto has been well preserved and the pigments are bright and vibrant. The thin lines of the wood grains of the panel are visible running horizontally throughout the composition. Trace amounts of pigment have been lost at each upper corner. Under UV light: certain pigments fluoresce, but no inpainting is apparent. The work is in excellent condition.
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Throughout his career, Chagall consistently turned to flower painting not as rigorous studies of realism, but rather as an expressive need to evoke the fantasy in their conflation of still life, narrative motifs and landscape. Chagall resided in the South of France from 1950-1973 and during this time, the artist continually sought to capture the splendor and luminosity of the Côte d'Azur by experimenting with bold colors and unstructured compositions.

In Le Bouquet et l’âne rouge, a multi-colored bouquet of flowers erupts from a vase to fill the canvas, displaying an extreme boldness of color and dynamic energy which beautifully bespeaks the fantasy and exuberance of Chagall's own inner world. This work is an iconographic rendering of the artist’s life in the South of France, incorporating images of Chagall's favorite themes including the female figure, most probably his second wife Vava, a flying donkey and the distant edifices of Saint-Paul-de-Vence.

Jean Cassou once said about the painter: “Chagall is one of his own images. He is the manager of his own fairyland. In the azure light that angles steeply down the slopes above the French Riviera, a sparkling translucence seizes nature… For painter Marc Chagall, it is a daily baptism in color” (quoted in Jackie Wullschlager, Chagall, Love and Exile, London, 2008, p. 500).