New Auction Highs for Marc Chagall Paintings
Two of Marc Chagall’s paintings sold for over the estimated price at November’s Sotheby’s Auction. Le Grand cirque, a ten-foot wide painting, that Chagall did in 1956, was sold to a bidder at Sotheby’s Asia for $16 million. The estimate price for Le Grand cirque was $15 million.
Marc Chagall
Le Grand Cirque, 1956
Courtesy Sotheby’s
Setting another record, was Les Amoureux, a painting of Chagall and his first wife and muse, Bella Rosenfeld. Chagall and Bella met in their home town of Vitebsk in 1909, married in 1915 and had one daughter, Ida, in 1916.
Marc Chagall
Les Amoureux, 1928
Courtesy Sotheby’s © 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Bella was the subject of many of Chagall’s paintings. In 1941, with the help of MoMA’s director, Albert Barr, Chagall and Bella, and their daughter, managed to escape from France before the Nazi occupation. In 1944, Bella died, in New York, of a viral infection.
Les Amoureux was painted, and sold, in 1928, and has been with the same family for the last nine decades. Les Amoureux sold to a Russian bidder for $28.5 million, becoming the top lot of the auction and the highest price paid for a Chagall work.
The Value of Marc Chagall Prints
In 1950, Chagall began to produce lithographs at Mourlot Studios, a commercial print shop in Paris, founded in 1852 by the Mourlot family. Artists like Matisse and Picasso had their works printed at Mourlot Studios. Chagall collaborated with master printer printer Charles Sorlier for 35 years, until Chagall died in 1985 at the age of 97.
Marc Chagall
Acrobats, 1984
Lithograph
Plate 24 x 18.7 inches
Sheet Size 32 x 25 1/2 inches
Signed and numbered 24/50
Mourlot 1031
For Sale at Surovek
Chagall called himself, “a dreamer who never woke up,” a statement reflected in the dreamlike quality of his work. The high quality of Chagall’s lithographs capture, not just the ethereal nature of his works, but also their painterly quality.
Marc Chagall
Le Abret Verte (The Green Tree), 1984
Lithograph
32 x 26 inches
Edition: 50
Signed in pencil
For Sale at Surovek Gallery
The prices realized for Chagall’s prints have increased with time. Like all fine art prints, their value depends on quality, edition limit and demand. Because Chagall was a prolific artist, who worked for more than seventy years of his life and whose work spoke to a global audience, much of his work was copied and sold, so fine art collectors and dealers must know how to identify and buy fine art prints.
Marc Chagall Works for Sale at Surovek
Please contact us for more information about Le Abret Verte (The ImeGreen Tree), Acrobats, done at Mourlot Studios, or any of the other fine work for sale at Surovek.
See More Marc Chagall Artwork for Sale
The Times of Israel. Chagall sets auction record at $28.5m in New York 15 November 2017
Smithsonian Magazine. The Elusive Marc Chagall Joseph A. Harriss December 2003