The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Record for a painting by René Magritte, sold for 71 million euros

2022-03-03T11:49:40.988Z


The Empire of Lights, dating from 1961, is one of the most famous works of the Belgian surrealist painter. It was sold at Sotheby's in London on Wednesday.


René Magritte's Empire of Lights

, a masterpiece of 20th century painting, sold for 59.4 million pounds (about 71.5 million euros) in London on Wednesday, an auction record for a work by the Belgian artist.

Read alsoExpert theory on René Magritte's resurgence in popularity

“Marking a new auction record for the surrealist master René Magritte, the evocative

“The Empire of Lights”

climbs to 59.4 million pounds”

, announced on Twitter Sotheby's, which organized the sale.

In 2018, a painting by Magritte,

The Pleasure Principle, went for

$26.8 million at auction in New York.

The Empire of Lights

was estimated by Sotheby's at more than 60 million dollars (54 million euros).

This is one of his most famous works, along with

La Trahison des images

(

Ceci n'est pas une pipe

) and

the Son of Man

, which depicts a man in front of the sea, a green apple in front of his face. .

Read alsoMagritte's muse reveals the secret of her portrait

The Empire of Lights

was painted in 1961 for Magritte's friend and muse, Anne-Marie Gillion Crowet, daughter of the Belgian collector Pierre Crowet.

It had since remained in the family.

It depicts a house in Brussels at night, lit by a lamppost, while a clear blue sky strewn with clouds seems to indicate that it is daytime.

“The eerie combination of a dark street, at night under a bright blue sky is typical of Magritte's bewildering surreal imagery – in which two seemingly incompatible things come together to create a

'

false reality

', the house of auction.

The painting

"the most cinematic of all Magritte's work"

This 114.5 by 146 cm painting has been exhibited around the world in Rome, Paris, Vienna, Milan, Seoul, Edinburgh or San Francisco, and was loaned to the Magritte Museum in Brussels from 2009 to 2020.

Sotheby's considers this painting to be

"arguably the most cinematic of all of Magritte's work"

, noting that it even inspired a scene from the horror film

The Exorcist

released in 1973. The painting is part of a series of seventeen oil paintings which

"constitute Magritte's only real attempt to create a

'

series

'

in his oeuvre,"

Sotheby's said.

This series was an immediate success with the public and collectors, with an early version purchased by Nelson Rockefeller and examples now housed in the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas and at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2022-03-03

You may like

Life/Entertain 2024-03-15T06:16:18.478Z

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.