René Magritte

Lou Cosyn, Brussels (acquired from the artist)

Private Collection, Italy

Private Collection, Brazil

Sale: Sotheby's, London, 1st July 1987, lot 279

Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Brussels, Galerie Dietrich, Exposition René Magritte, 1941, no. 9

David Sylvester (ed.), Sarah Whitfield & Michael Raeburn, René Magritte, Catalogue Raisonée, London, 1993, vol. II, no. 474, illustrated p. 277

The canvas is lined. There are a number of scattered spots of retouching, mainly in the lower half of the composition, as well as a small repaired tear to the left of centre with associated retouching, visible under ultra violet light. This work is in fine, stable condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration, although slightly less warm in the original.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Painted in 1940, La belle de nuit coincided with a turbulent period for Magritte. When the Germans invaded Belgium on 15th May 1940 Magritte fled Brussels for France, fearing persecution for his previous political engagements. Although he remained there for only a few months, the upheaval inevitably had an effect on his work. Michel Draguet writes: ‘His work shook off the hold of reality in favour of what Breton termed “a world ruled by love and the marvellous”. His references to reality – those “fragments of external reality borne along on the waves of the oneiric imagination” – took on an increasingly distant connection with the everyday as, while continuing to work, he probed his inner world and examined the way some of those close to him perceived his art’ (M. Draguet, Magritte: His Work, His Museum, Paris, 2009, p. 108). This precipitated the move towards a new aesthetic of beauty that would eventually be expressed in the works of his ‘sunlight’ period. Rather than juxtaposing contradictory or unusual objects in an attempt to shock the viewer, the canvases of this period rely on subtler means (fig. 1). In La belle de nuit Magritte deliberately avoids the disconcerting imagery of some of his earlier work; instead the composition makes real the poetic metaphor of night falling, with a theatrical curtain suspended above a luminous blue nightscape. The idea of a curtain being symbolically interchangeable with sky was one that intrigued Magritte and one that he often explored in his paintings; he once told a reporter, 'the sky is a form of curtain because it hides something from us. We are surrounded by curtains' (quoted in Sarah Whitfield, Magritte (exhibition catalogue), Hayward Gallery, London, 1992, n.p.).

The present work can be seen as an early precursor to the series of works that Magritte would produce on the theme of day and night and which found its fullest expression in the L’empire des lumières paintings (fig. 2). Magritte described the significance of those works in an interview in 1956, ‘What is represented in a picture is what is visible to the eye, it is the thing or the things that had to be thought of. Thus, what is represented in the picture [L'empire des lumières] are the things I thought of, to be precise, a nocturnal landscape and a skyscape such as can be seen in broad daylight. The landscape suggests night and the skyscape day. This evocation of night and day seems to me to have the power to surprise and delight us. I call this power: poetry. The reason why I believe the evocation to have this poetic power is, among other things, because I have always felt the greatest interest in night and day’ (quoted in D. Sylvester, op. cit., vol. III, p. 145). This combination was among Magritte’s most successful and one that he returned to throughout his life – including in what turned out to be his last complete painting La page blanche (fig. 3). In this work he returned to a fully nocturnal scene that maintains this interest in the relationship between day and night whilst also exploring notions of concealment and revelation in a manner that is strongly reminiscent of the present work.