Marc Chagall

Estate of the artist

David MacNeil (inherited from the above)

Private Collection

Galerie Malingue, Paris

Private Collection

Landau Fine Art, Montreal

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Excellent condition. Original canvas. Colors are vibrant and fresh. No evidence of retouching visible under UV light.
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The present composition is a quintessential example of Chagall's mastery in assembling an array of folkloric and mystical images in a dense and colorful composition. The work contains hybrids of important elements of his pictorial iconography, including the goat-headed woman and her dual-headed suitor. The latter was an image that appeared in some of Chagall's earliest compositions from the Cubist years, usually in the form of self-portraits  This image also alludes to double-headed Roman god Janus, who saw both the past and the future, which is a significant inclusion for the artist during these last years of his life.  

Each figure is masterfully rendered through a matrix of intense color and spatial experimentation that epitomized Chagall's working method.  These elements reflect his own very personal delight in the act of artistic creation. As Susan Compton wrote in the catalogue of the Royal Academy Chagall Retrospective: "Throughout his life certain themes recur in the work of Chagall: the circus, lovers and peasants take their place beside more sombre scenes of suffering and death. For the themes in Chagall's art are timeless, not confined to a single epoch of history, but reminding man of the continuity of life for generation after generation, since the earliest days of recorded time" (S. Compton, Chagall, (exhibition catalogue) London, 1985, p. 14).