Chagall, Marc, The Fables, 1952
1952
Illustrated book
Two volumes, 38.5 x 29.5 cm.
Illustrated with 100 original etchings in black.
One of 15 hors commerce copies reserved for contributors, n°XV, signed by the artist in ink.
Exceptional binding by Monique Mathieu.
Éd. Tériade, Paris.
Catalog raisonné: Cramer 22.
After taking an interest in Gogol’s Dead Souls at the suggestion of art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard, Chagall decided to tackle a classic of French literature, Jean de la Fontaine’s Fables. The author wrote two hundred and forty-three fables, the most famous of which are
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.
