Marc Chagall, La symphonie des rêves. Œuvres provenant de la succession de l'artiste
Marc Chagall, La symphonie des rêves. Œuvres provenant de la succession de l'artiste
Marc Chagall ─ Jean de La Fontaine
Les Fables 1952. 102 etchings. One of the first 40 copies, with the plates hand-painted by Chagall, including two suites, one on Japan nacré, the other on Montval. 4 volumes.
Lot closes
April 9, 01:42 PM GMT
Estimate
60,000 - 80,000 EUR
Starting Bid
50,000 EUR
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Description
Marc Chagall ─ Jean de La Fontaine
Fables
Paris, Tériade, 1952.
One of the first copies with hand-painted plates by Chagall, including two suites.
4 4to volumes (385 to 391 x 300 mm; suites: 388 to 400 x 285 x 305 mm), including 2 for the suites. In leaves, illustrated wrappers, dust jacket, in 2 publisher’s slipcases.
102 etchings inserts, including 100 full-page and 2 for the wrappers.
All the copies, in Rives vellum, are signed in ink by the artist in the limitation notice.
One of 40 first copies with hand-painted plates by Chagall and 2 suites of etchings (n°30), one on Japan nacré, the other on Montval. Limited edition of 200 copies on Rives vellum.
Cramer, Livres illustrés, n° 22.
The Artist and the Book, 52.
Ch. Sorlier, Marc Chagall et Ambroise Vollard, Galerie Matignon, 1981.
If choosing Chagall to illustrate Gogol’s Les Âmes mortes had been natural, entrusting him with the Fables of La Fontaine was much less so. Chagall was confronted by the famous illustrations of Jean-Baptiste Oudry, François Chauveau, Benjamin Rabier, Gustave Doré or Grandville.
This time, Vollard wanted the work to be engraved in color - a major challenge. While the hundred or so gouaches that Chagall produced in color were dazzling, it was impossible to transpose them into color, due to a lack of sufficiently skilled practitioners. Faced with the mediocrity of the first attempts to transpose in color, Chagall had to engrave the work a second time, this time in copperplate. But, as for Âmes mortes, the edition was interrupted by the death of Vollard, before being taken up again in 1950 by Tériade.
Knowing just how brilliant a colorist Chagall was, the publisher asked the artist to enhance the plates of the 85 first copies with suites. For this edition, Chagall also composed two new plates for the wrappers.