Early Magritte
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Magritte Old Flanders and Belgium
Chronology : 1926 1928 1936 1937 1941
See also : Magritte Old Flanders and Belgium
Chronology : 1926 1928 1936 1937 1941
1926 Le Groupe Silencieux
2018 SOLD for £ 7.2M by Christie's
In 1921 the young René Magritte is hired as a draftsman in a wallpaper factory in Brussels. He frequents Surrealist and Dadaist literary circles and would like to become independent as an advertising illustrator.
Attentive to avant-garde art, Magritte is subjugated in 1923 by an image of the Canto d'amore, a surrealist work painted in 1914 by De Chirico. Ordinary objects constitute a poetic universe if their positioning is absurd. He transposes in an ordinary surrounding the irrational and antique-inspired scenes by De Chirico.
In 1926 in Brussels the Galerie Le Centaure invites René Magritte to prepare paintings for his first solo exhibition to be held in April and May of the next year. The young artist builds his own surreal world where the main characters are bilboquets.
In this set of a wide variety Magritte questions the nature of the human being, often limited to several cut organs. He simplifies his drawing so that the objects are immediately recognizable, making their interactions even more bizarre.
On February 27, 2018, Christie's sold for £ 7.2M Le Groupe silencieux, oil on canvas 120 x 80 cm painted in 1926 and exhibited in 1927, lot 107.
The walls of the room are pink, the color of the female nude which also excites Magritte at that time. An almost complete humanoid silhouette is a thick cropped board. Three eyes are folded on the edges of a flesh-colored cube in an iconography that anticipates Dali's soft watches.
Art did not escape this grotesque setting with the image of a castle that dissolves in the curtain and a large landscape painting carelessly leaning against the wall on the left.
Visitors are not interested in his intentionally illogical vision of the world. In August 1927 Magritte joined the surrealist group in Paris where the audience was also reluctant. Returning to Brussels in 1930 he exploited through four decades his original idea of the incongruous relations between disparate objects.
Attentive to avant-garde art, Magritte is subjugated in 1923 by an image of the Canto d'amore, a surrealist work painted in 1914 by De Chirico. Ordinary objects constitute a poetic universe if their positioning is absurd. He transposes in an ordinary surrounding the irrational and antique-inspired scenes by De Chirico.
In 1926 in Brussels the Galerie Le Centaure invites René Magritte to prepare paintings for his first solo exhibition to be held in April and May of the next year. The young artist builds his own surreal world where the main characters are bilboquets.
In this set of a wide variety Magritte questions the nature of the human being, often limited to several cut organs. He simplifies his drawing so that the objects are immediately recognizable, making their interactions even more bizarre.
On February 27, 2018, Christie's sold for £ 7.2M Le Groupe silencieux, oil on canvas 120 x 80 cm painted in 1926 and exhibited in 1927, lot 107.
The walls of the room are pink, the color of the female nude which also excites Magritte at that time. An almost complete humanoid silhouette is a thick cropped board. Three eyes are folded on the edges of a flesh-colored cube in an iconography that anticipates Dali's soft watches.
Art did not escape this grotesque setting with the image of a castle that dissolves in the curtain and a large landscape painting carelessly leaning against the wall on the left.
Visitors are not interested in his intentionally illogical vision of the world. In August 1927 Magritte joined the surrealist group in Paris where the audience was also reluctant. Returning to Brussels in 1930 he exploited through four decades his original idea of the incongruous relations between disparate objects.
1926-1927 La Lumière du Pôle
2022 SOLD for £ 6M by Christie's
René Magritte based his whole career on the observation that the image of an object is not the real object. The consequence is that a landscape may be populated by surrealist elements and that the apparent textures and shapes may disturb the expectation of the viewer.
1926 was a prolific year, just before he joined the Parisian Surrealist circles.
The mountain range is used several times as a backdrop. The dreamlike dimension is sometimes brought by a single element.
For example in Les Signes du soir, oil on canvas 75 x 65 cm, the large frame is a trompe-l'oeil, leaving to the viewer to choose whether the tree is in the painting or elsewhere. This artwork was sold for £ 1.8M by Christie's on February 27, 2018.
In Le Toit du Monde, 65 x 75 cm, a violin stick is raised in the middle of the table. The stage is curled to imitate the folds of the mountain and its surface is holed like a cheese of Gruyere. It was sold for € 2.7M by Sotheby's on October 19, 2017.
In L'Esprit du voyageur, of same size, a tall bowling pin positioned inside a group of three porticoes admires the immensity of nature. The foreground of the mountain appears in space like a flat cardboard. It was sold for £ 460K by Christie's on February 9, 2011.
Painted in 1926-1927, La Lumière du Pôle is more ambitious with three elements spanning the whole foreground. A pair of bald women in the nude may be wax mannequins. Their integrity is conjured by the sheared edges featuring them as some mere paper shells with empty interiors. The third element is a standing dove that looks like the fur wrap of a vase. Its terminus ante quem is March 1927 when it was illustrated as Le Sommet du Pôle in a Brussels magazine.
La Lumière du Pôle, large size oil on canvas 139 x 105 cm, was sold for £ 6M by Christie's on March 1, 2022, lot 102.
1926 was a prolific year, just before he joined the Parisian Surrealist circles.
The mountain range is used several times as a backdrop. The dreamlike dimension is sometimes brought by a single element.
For example in Les Signes du soir, oil on canvas 75 x 65 cm, the large frame is a trompe-l'oeil, leaving to the viewer to choose whether the tree is in the painting or elsewhere. This artwork was sold for £ 1.8M by Christie's on February 27, 2018.
In Le Toit du Monde, 65 x 75 cm, a violin stick is raised in the middle of the table. The stage is curled to imitate the folds of the mountain and its surface is holed like a cheese of Gruyere. It was sold for € 2.7M by Sotheby's on October 19, 2017.
In L'Esprit du voyageur, of same size, a tall bowling pin positioned inside a group of three porticoes admires the immensity of nature. The foreground of the mountain appears in space like a flat cardboard. It was sold for £ 460K by Christie's on February 9, 2011.
Painted in 1926-1927, La Lumière du Pôle is more ambitious with three elements spanning the whole foreground. A pair of bald women in the nude may be wax mannequins. Their integrity is conjured by the sheared edges featuring them as some mere paper shells with empty interiors. The third element is a standing dove that looks like the fur wrap of a vase. Its terminus ante quem is March 1927 when it was illustrated as Le Sommet du Pôle in a Brussels magazine.
La Lumière du Pôle, large size oil on canvas 139 x 105 cm, was sold for £ 6M by Christie's on March 1, 2022, lot 102.
1928 Les Jours Gigantesques
2012 SOLD for £ 7.2M by Christie's
A fan of the Fantômas movie series, René Magritte manages to express the sexual violence, a trending theme in the Parisian Surrealist group.
The rape stages a clothed man holding high a nude woman. She is in terror with an extended arm which mimics the Ratto delle Sabine by Giambologna.
Magritte adds his own special wit. The man is in front of his victim but is trimmed in his head and back so that he does not overlap her outline. In a close view the woman is indeed threatened by a part of herself, somehow composed like a movie poster. Her struggle is psychological. The artist originally proposed the title La Peur de l'Amour, describing a balance between violence and union.
The 30 year old artist appealed his Surrealist poet friends to coin a better title. He was ready to accept L'Aube désarmé suggested by Nougé before converging with Scutenaire for a megalomaniac Les Jours Gigantesques.
This oil on canvas 72 x 54 cm painted in 1928 was sold for £ 7.2M from a lower estimate of £ 800K by Christie's on June 20, 2012, lot 56.
The rape stages a clothed man holding high a nude woman. She is in terror with an extended arm which mimics the Ratto delle Sabine by Giambologna.
Magritte adds his own special wit. The man is in front of his victim but is trimmed in his head and back so that he does not overlap her outline. In a close view the woman is indeed threatened by a part of herself, somehow composed like a movie poster. Her struggle is psychological. The artist originally proposed the title La Peur de l'Amour, describing a balance between violence and union.
The 30 year old artist appealed his Surrealist poet friends to coin a better title. He was ready to accept L'Aube désarmé suggested by Nougé before converging with Scutenaire for a megalomaniac Les Jours Gigantesques.
This oil on canvas 72 x 54 cm painted in 1928 was sold for £ 7.2M from a lower estimate of £ 800K by Christie's on June 20, 2012, lot 56.
1928 Les Chasseurs au Bord de la Nuit
2014 SOLD for £ 6.6M by Christie's
In 1928, René Magritte is in Paris. Same as Dali and Ernst, he expresses his vision of life by creating parallel universes. He is passionate about Poe but he is also still shocked by the suicide of his mother in the Sambre river 16 years earlier when he was 14.
On February 4, 2014, Christie's sold for £ 6.6M Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit (Hunters at the edge of night), oil on canvas 81 x 116 cm. It was the largest format used at that time by Magritte.
Two bulky men with boots and rifles are desperately clinging to a wall. On the right, the space is free to the horizon. Nothing explains why these men do not circumvent the edge of the wall excepted the hostile vacuum of this endless landscape.
It was assumed that the wall came suddenly for separating them from any logical reality, as the Pit and the Pendulum in Poe's short story. A hunter is a killer who does not have to attract sympathy but the attitude of these men is a masterpiece of the surrealist expression of anguish and a beautiful symbol of the impotence of humanity.
The artist plays with day and night. The angle of the shadow is from twilight but the blank light does not come from the sun which just set off at the opposite.
On February 4, 2014, Christie's sold for £ 6.6M Les chasseurs au bord de la nuit (Hunters at the edge of night), oil on canvas 81 x 116 cm. It was the largest format used at that time by Magritte.
Two bulky men with boots and rifles are desperately clinging to a wall. On the right, the space is free to the horizon. Nothing explains why these men do not circumvent the edge of the wall excepted the hostile vacuum of this endless landscape.
It was assumed that the wall came suddenly for separating them from any logical reality, as the Pit and the Pendulum in Poe's short story. A hunter is a killer who does not have to attract sympathy but the attitude of these men is a masterpiece of the surrealist expression of anguish and a beautiful symbol of the impotence of humanity.
The artist plays with day and night. The angle of the shadow is from twilight but the blank light does not come from the sun which just set off at the opposite.
1928 Le Nu couché
2020 SOLD for $ 6.9M by Christie's
In their dreamlike poetic quest, the Parisian Surrealists enjoy juxtaposing uncorrelated things for puzzling and shocking. Magritte is the illustrator of that mood, also characterized from 1925 by their fanciful cadavres exquis.
Le Nu couché, oil on canvas 81 x 116 cm painted by Magritte while he lived in Paris in 1928, is a significant example.
As described by its title, it features a nude in the tradition of the Venus of Urbino. She is his wife Georgette reclining on her back with an evasive gaze, the head slightly bent on a pillow.
The nude body is used as a shelf for objects of daily use, with erotic meanings. The big lamp raised on the sex is phallic, same as the drinking glass on the belly. The small plate over a shoulder and the purse on the feet are feminine. A book is linking the arm and the hip. The bowler hat anticipates the frequent use of this piece to identify the artist.
Magritte did not opt for a hermetic title. It is not, or not only, a nu couché, foreseeing the Trahison des images (Ceci n'est pas une pipe) of the next year.
Le Nu couché was sold for $ 6.9M from a lower estimate of $ 4M by Christie's on October 6, 2020, lot 28.
Le Nu couché, oil on canvas 81 x 116 cm painted by Magritte while he lived in Paris in 1928, is a significant example.
As described by its title, it features a nude in the tradition of the Venus of Urbino. She is his wife Georgette reclining on her back with an evasive gaze, the head slightly bent on a pillow.
The nude body is used as a shelf for objects of daily use, with erotic meanings. The big lamp raised on the sex is phallic, same as the drinking glass on the belly. The small plate over a shoulder and the purse on the feet are feminine. A book is linking the arm and the hip. The bowler hat anticipates the frequent use of this piece to identify the artist.
Magritte did not opt for a hermetic title. It is not, or not only, a nu couché, foreseeing the Trahison des images (Ceci n'est pas une pipe) of the next year.
Le Nu couché was sold for $ 6.9M from a lower estimate of $ 4M by Christie's on October 6, 2020, lot 28.
masterpiece
1929 La Trahison des Images
Los Angeles County Museum
From 1926 Magritte observes that an image of an object remains an image and is not the object. He begins to confront the drawing of his pipe with the word 'pipe' or with an abstraction. In 1929 La trahison des images is an artistic manifesto of a sublime simplicity, in just six words: "Ceci n'est pas une pipe."
In the same period Miro also was appreciating that the new poetic dimension of modern art was a personal work that could not be attached to a movement and even less to a political affiliation.
In the same period Miro also was appreciating that the new poetic dimension of modern art was a personal work that could not be attached to a movement and even less to a political affiliation.
1936 La Vengeance
2021 SOLD for € 14.6M by Christie's
In every work René Magritte invites the viewer in a dreamlike world where the juxtaposition of familiar objects becomes paradoxical. His limitless fantasy integrates a reflection about the deep nature of the images, which must be considered by themselves and not as a trial to reconstitute a reality or a truth.
Some artifacts get a major role in his surrealistic demonstration, especially when they mingle together. The world of the artist is a confusion between outside and inside, still enhanced by the role of the door which loses its separation role. The image within the image provides also a major role to the easel.
In 1931 in La Belle Captive, a continuous pastoral landscape incorporates an easel so that the viewer cannot know whether the frame on the easel is empty or includes a picture in the exact continuity of the landscape. In 1933 La Condition Humaine brings a further confusion between the easel and a porch.
On June 30, 2021, Christie's sold for € 14.6M from a lower estimate of € 6M La Vengeance, oil on canvas 55 x 65 cm painted in 1936, lot 108.
The easel is inside an empty room. It supports a landscape painting with a cloudy blue sky. The white clouds escape on the wall around the easel. A single grelot (jingle bell) on the floor is a signature artifact by the artist as a frequently used alternative to his baluster bilboquet.
The ultimate compositions from that trend are painted in 1939. A single white cloud is stuck in a half opened transparent door that stands alone in a seaside landscape, in La Victoire, or in a door embedded within a wall, in Le Poison (not to be confused with another Poison which is a precursor to L'Empire des Lumières).
Some artifacts get a major role in his surrealistic demonstration, especially when they mingle together. The world of the artist is a confusion between outside and inside, still enhanced by the role of the door which loses its separation role. The image within the image provides also a major role to the easel.
In 1931 in La Belle Captive, a continuous pastoral landscape incorporates an easel so that the viewer cannot know whether the frame on the easel is empty or includes a picture in the exact continuity of the landscape. In 1933 La Condition Humaine brings a further confusion between the easel and a porch.
On June 30, 2021, Christie's sold for € 14.6M from a lower estimate of € 6M La Vengeance, oil on canvas 55 x 65 cm painted in 1936, lot 108.
The easel is inside an empty room. It supports a landscape painting with a cloudy blue sky. The white clouds escape on the wall around the easel. A single grelot (jingle bell) on the floor is a signature artifact by the artist as a frequently used alternative to his baluster bilboquet.
The ultimate compositions from that trend are painted in 1939. A single white cloud is stuck in a half opened transparent door that stands alone in a seaside landscape, in La Victoire, or in a door embedded within a wall, in Le Poison (not to be confused with another Poison which is a precursor to L'Empire des Lumières).
1937 Le Principe du Plaisir
2018 SOLD for $ 27M by Sotheby's
Edward James is the son of an American railroad boss and of a supposed natural daughter of King Edward VII. He lives in England. He is a wealthy poet, and his interest in psychoanalysis is transformed into a passion for surrealist art.
In 1937 James is 30 years old. Dali introduces him to Magritte. Their connivance is immediate and perfect. Magritte proposes to make two surrealist portraits of his new patron.
Magritte sends a preparatory drawing to his model. He has chosen the theme of the portrait whose head is entirely replaced by a dazzling light. To make sure of James' enthusiasm, Magritte asks him to take care of the photographic preparation in the pose that matches the drawing. James has the picture taken by Man Ray.
On November 12, 2018, Sotheby's sold for $ 27M from a lower estimate of $ 15M this portrait of James by Magritte, oil on canvas 73 x 55 cm painted in 1937, lot 35. Magritte has friendly chosen a Freudian title, Le Principe du Plaisir. The outline of the head is embedded in a halo that makes the image even more laudative.
The provenance testifies to the lasting success of this portrait. It belonged to James and then to his foundation until 1978 and remained in another collection since 1979.
The second portrait, also painted in 1937, is titled La Reproduction Interdite. It is another development of the theme of the visible and the hidden. James looks at himself in a large mirror in which his reflection is seen from behind.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
In 1937 James is 30 years old. Dali introduces him to Magritte. Their connivance is immediate and perfect. Magritte proposes to make two surrealist portraits of his new patron.
Magritte sends a preparatory drawing to his model. He has chosen the theme of the portrait whose head is entirely replaced by a dazzling light. To make sure of James' enthusiasm, Magritte asks him to take care of the photographic preparation in the pose that matches the drawing. James has the picture taken by Man Ray.
On November 12, 2018, Sotheby's sold for $ 27M from a lower estimate of $ 15M this portrait of James by Magritte, oil on canvas 73 x 55 cm painted in 1937, lot 35. Magritte has friendly chosen a Freudian title, Le Principe du Plaisir. The outline of the head is embedded in a halo that makes the image even more laudative.
The provenance testifies to the lasting success of this portrait. It belonged to James and then to his foundation until 1978 and remained in another collection since 1979.
The second portrait, also painted in 1937, is titled La Reproduction Interdite. It is another development of the theme of the visible and the hidden. James looks at himself in a large mirror in which his reflection is seen from behind.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
1938 Le Domaine d'Arnheim
2017 SOLD for £ 10.2M by Christie's
The titles of René Magritte's artworks are mostly the result of chance. Le Domaine d'Arnheim is a counter-example.
The composition shows a large snowy mountain seen from a chalet. Everything is normal except that the horizon is centered on an eagle's head in profile, suggesting the intervention of a sculptor for shaping the mountain as in Mount Rushmore. The surprise occasioned by this discovery leads the viewer to perceive the landscape as the extended wings of the bird. In the foreground two beautiful eggs are placed on a low wall.
The artist has thus grouped two dualities which are among the permanent themes of his surreal world : the living and the rock form an impossible pair while egg to bird is somehow a metamorphosis similar as caterpillar to butterfly. From 1932 the artist had placed eggs in bird cages.
The title also has a double meaning. Arnhem in the Netherlands has as its etymological origin 'the home of the eagle' from an Old German word. The Domain of Arnheim is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe in which a man with unlimited wealth remodels the landscape to make it more beautiful than what nature alone can do. This title chosen by Magritte is also an acknowledgment of Poe as a forerunner of Surrealism.
The original version, oil on canvas 73 x 100 cm painted in 1938, was sold for £ 10.2M from a lower estimate of £ 6.5M by Christie's on February 28, 2017, lot 112. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Magritte executed his sublime landscape ten times, always with the same title : three paintings and seven gouaches.
Domaine d'Arnheim, painted in 1949, features the same landscape with significant surrealist additions in a new demonstration of the treachery of images. This oil in canvas 100 x 81 cm was sold for $ 19M by Sotheby's on May 16, 2023, lot 9.
The landscape is now framed in a full arched window between a pair of curtains. The eggs have gone, superseded on two shelves by pieces of shattered glass duplicating the landscape. The largest piece features the eagle's head. The picture itself is cracked like a jigsaw puzzle in the same element shapes as the shattered glass panes.
The composition shows a large snowy mountain seen from a chalet. Everything is normal except that the horizon is centered on an eagle's head in profile, suggesting the intervention of a sculptor for shaping the mountain as in Mount Rushmore. The surprise occasioned by this discovery leads the viewer to perceive the landscape as the extended wings of the bird. In the foreground two beautiful eggs are placed on a low wall.
The artist has thus grouped two dualities which are among the permanent themes of his surreal world : the living and the rock form an impossible pair while egg to bird is somehow a metamorphosis similar as caterpillar to butterfly. From 1932 the artist had placed eggs in bird cages.
The title also has a double meaning. Arnhem in the Netherlands has as its etymological origin 'the home of the eagle' from an Old German word. The Domain of Arnheim is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe in which a man with unlimited wealth remodels the landscape to make it more beautiful than what nature alone can do. This title chosen by Magritte is also an acknowledgment of Poe as a forerunner of Surrealism.
The original version, oil on canvas 73 x 100 cm painted in 1938, was sold for £ 10.2M from a lower estimate of £ 6.5M by Christie's on February 28, 2017, lot 112. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Magritte executed his sublime landscape ten times, always with the same title : three paintings and seven gouaches.
Domaine d'Arnheim, painted in 1949, features the same landscape with significant surrealist additions in a new demonstration of the treachery of images. This oil in canvas 100 x 81 cm was sold for $ 19M by Sotheby's on May 16, 2023, lot 9.
The landscape is now framed in a full arched window between a pair of curtains. The eggs have gone, superseded on two shelves by pieces of shattered glass duplicating the landscape. The largest piece features the eagle's head. The picture itself is cracked like a jigsaw puzzle in the same element shapes as the shattered glass panes.
1941 L'Aimant
2011 SOLD for £ 4.75M by Christie's
This is a painting by Magritte, just as the public loves them. The line is simple and well done, the colors are bright and vivid. A naked woman is standing, front view, leaning lightly on a rock. Behind her, a heavy red curtain.
It's a Magritte. So do not leave too early your viewing. Indeed, the shadow of the woman is replaced by her exact shapes in the folds of the curtain. The scene that seemed so natural immediately becomes strange.
The title in French, "l'Aimant", invites for an ambiguous comparison between romantic and magnetic attractions. I checked in my dictionary: the two etymologies of the word are entirely independent. Magritte, as a worthy contemporary of Duchamp, has used the double meaning meaning with a perfect subtlety.
The artwork 130 x 90 cm was done in 1941, confirmed by two letters in which the artist gave some descriptive explanations. It is was sold for £ 4.75M from a lower estimate of £ 3.5M by Christie's on February 9, 2011.
It's a Magritte. So do not leave too early your viewing. Indeed, the shadow of the woman is replaced by her exact shapes in the folds of the curtain. The scene that seemed so natural immediately becomes strange.
The title in French, "l'Aimant", invites for an ambiguous comparison between romantic and magnetic attractions. I checked in my dictionary: the two etymologies of the word are entirely independent. Magritte, as a worthy contemporary of Duchamp, has used the double meaning meaning with a perfect subtlety.
The artwork 130 x 90 cm was done in 1941, confirmed by two letters in which the artist gave some descriptive explanations. It is was sold for £ 4.75M from a lower estimate of £ 3.5M by Christie's on February 9, 2011.
1945 L'Ingénue
2021 SOLD for € 5.5M by Sotheby's
L'Ingénue, oil on canvas 80 x 60 cm painted in 1945, is loaded by Magritte with several of his pre-war poetic symbols.
It features a full front fully nude standing woman whose head is a portrait of his wife Georgette. The smooth skin is appealing but the eyes are closed for privacy. The title may be correlated with that attitude. It is also possibly a reference to the same title in a totally different painting by Renoir whose hedonistic work had much influenced Magritte in the recent war time.
She is linked to the ground by her hand on a cubic stone and the landscape behind her is not populated with humans but with bilboquets with conic nose and stupid eyes. The picture also displays the romantic rose, the sky blocks and the floating white clouds. The dove has not been invited.
L'Ingénue was sold for € 5.5M from a lower estimate of € 3.5M by Sotheby's on October 26, 2021, lot 5. Please watch the video prepared by the auction house.
It features a full front fully nude standing woman whose head is a portrait of his wife Georgette. The smooth skin is appealing but the eyes are closed for privacy. The title may be correlated with that attitude. It is also possibly a reference to the same title in a totally different painting by Renoir whose hedonistic work had much influenced Magritte in the recent war time.
She is linked to the ground by her hand on a cubic stone and the landscape behind her is not populated with humans but with bilboquets with conic nose and stupid eyes. The picture also displays the romantic rose, the sky blocks and the floating white clouds. The dove has not been invited.
L'Ingénue was sold for € 5.5M from a lower estimate of € 3.5M by Sotheby's on October 26, 2021, lot 5. Please watch the video prepared by the auction house.
