Live Auction 21612Impressionist and Modern Art Day and Works on Paper Sale
MARC CHAGALL (1887-1985)
Lot 409 PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION

MARC CHAGALL (1887-1985)

Esquisse préparatoire pour la mise en page de la couverture de Franz Meyer Leben und Werk Cologne

Closed3 March 2023

Price Realised

GBP 47,880

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MARC CHAGALL (1887-1985)
Esquisse préparatoire pour la mise en page de la couverture de Franz Meyer Leben und Werk Cologne
signed 'Chagall' (at the centre)
gouache, brush and India ink and pencil on paper
13 x 19 7/8 in. (33 x 50.5 cm.)
Executed in 1961

Urs-Victor Hammer, Germany.
R. Meyer, Wörthsee.
Private collection; sale, Zisska & Lacher, Munich, 23 July 2021, lot 3274.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

Specialist note

This delightful work is a preparatory sketch for the cover of Franz Meyer’s 1963 biography Marc Chagall. Leben und Werk. Meyer, a Swiss art historian and the husband of Chagall’s daughter Ida, set out to write a comprehensive German-language study of the artist. Chagall was heavily involved in the process, and his resulting contribution is a dense and poetic drawing treated minimally in Indian ink, pencil, and hints of gouache. The symbols reveal the contents of the book: Chagall's attachment to his homeland, the bond between humanity and nature, the transience of existence, and his deep and enduring affection for his wife.