Paul Delvaux

Study for “L’Acropole”

1965

Edward Alfred Cucuel 1875-1954 American Le Casino de Monte-Carlo Signed "Cucuel" (lower left) Watercolor on paper American Impressionist Edward Alfred Cucuel was celebrated for h...

René Magritte 1898-1967 Belgian Le carnaval du sage (The Sage’s Carnival) Signed “Magritte” (lower right); titled and dated "Le carnaval du sage 1947" (en verso) Oil on canvas The enigmatic paintings of René Magritte have become some of the most familiar and celebrated of the Surrealist movement. Among the most influential of the Surrealist painters of the 20th century, Magritte is an artist of international renown, as beloved for his popular appeal as he is for the psychological intensity of his works. The present oil on canvas, entitled Le carnaval du sage, was executed in 1947 at the height of his career, and it is a tour-de-force example of the haunting, mysterious scenes that comprise his oeuvre. Painted in the years following the Second World War, Le carnaval du sage showcases several recurring themes from Magritte’s oeuvre. Chiefly, a juxtaposition between the visible and the hidden is keenly felt. Throughout his career, Magritte explores the psychological obsession with revealing what is hidden, particularly with regard to the human face. In his Le fils de l’homme, he obscures the face of a man in a bowler hat with an apple, while his Les amants (Metropolitan Museum of Art) conceals the faces of two lovers with white sheets. In Le carnaval du sage, Magritte juxtaposes the blatant nudity of his central figure by masking her face, simultaneously revealing and concealing her from the viewer. The work also incorporates two of Magritte’s most common tropes – the glass of water and the baguette. Lending the scene a strange sense of domesticity, they appear infinitely familiar and distinctly out of place, and thus heighten the uncanny effect of Magritte’s composition. In the background hovers a ghost obscured by a sheet, a figure which was of particular fascination to Magritte beginning in 1946. He once wrote to his fellow Surrealist Paul Nougé: "I saw in a dream an answer to the problem of the ghost: the traditional ghost draped...

*PLEASE NOTE UK BUYERS WILL ONLY PAY 5% VAT ON THIS PURCHASE. Les Captives by Paul Delvaux (1897-1994) Pen, Indian ink and wash on paper 35 x 43.5 cm (13 ³/₄ x 17 ¹/₈ inches) Signed and dated lower right, P. Delvaux 1955 Inscribed on the reverse Provenance: Christie's London, 2010 Private collection, London, acquired from the above Artist biography: Belgian artist Paul Delvaux was born in Liège in eastern Belgium. Despite Delvaux’s desire to become an artist, his lawyer father encouraged him to train as an architect at the prestigious Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Thanks to private art tuition undertaken alongside his architectural studies, in 1925 Delvaux gained his first solo exhibition in Brussels. Heavily influenced by contemporary Expressionism and Surrealism, Delvaux was soon drawn to the ‘metaphysical’ paintings of Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico. On a chance visit to a museum of medical curiosities...

PAUL DELVAUX 1897-1995 Antheit, Huy 1897-1995 Veurne (Belgian) Title: The Sea is Near La Mer est Proche, 1966 Technique: Original Hand Signed and Inscribed Lithograph on Arc...