Chagall, Marc, Death of Dorcon, 1961
1961
Original color lithograph on Arches paper
53.8 x 75.8 cm
For the book published by Tériade, 250 signed and numbered copies on Arches + 20 H.C. Plate XIII of the illustrations. Unfolded proof.
Catalog raisonné: Sorlier 320
“La Mort de Dorcon” is a lithograph by Marc Chagall to illustrate the Greek Longus novel Daphnis and Chloé. In a bucolic setting, the shepherds Daphnis and Chloe gradually fall in love.
This brightly colored work depicts the tragic end of the herdsman Dorcon. We can discern several episodes in the story where the man is present: the moment when he dies to save his herd of cattle, and when, in his final moments, he gives Chloé his flute as a gift. Finally, as the young lovers’ love survives these threatening events, they are reunited in the glowing twilight.
About the author
Marc Chagall (1887-1985)
Of Russian origin, born into a very religious Jewish family with a strong attachment to folklore, Marc Chagall is one of those great figures of twentieth-century art who forged a highly personal body of work. He fashioned a poetic, ethereal space, often highly colored, inhabited by recurring symbolic motifs – the rooster, the donkey, the couple, the moon, bouquets and angels in particular. In 1964, André Malraux commissioned him to paint the ceiling of the Opéra Garnier in Paris.
