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Colour lithograph, printed by Mourlot Frères, Paris · Published by XXe Siècle · Reference: Mourlot 572, Cramer 80 · Unsigned edition
There is something quietly remarkable about this print. Chagall made it in 1969, when he was eighty two years old, and it carries all the warmth and confidence of a man who had spent a lifetime learning exactly how to put his inner world onto paper.
It was created for the XXe Siècle homage edition, a celebrated publication that brought together some of the most distinguished critical voices of the day to pay tribute to Chagall's extraordinary life and work. Printed in colour on white wove paper, this unsigned edition was printed at the same time as the signed edition of 75 and came from the same stones.
Look at the image itself and you will find all the things that make Chagall so immediately and lastingly loveable. Small houses sit against a warm ground, animated by donkeys and wandering figures. A crescent moon hangs in the sky above and a delicate bouquet of flowers rests quietly in the composition. These are the images Chagall returned to his whole life, the village scenes and humble figures drawn from his childhood in Vitebsk, the moon that appears again and again in his work like a private symbol of wonder, and the bouquet, simple and generous, offered without any conditions at all.
The donkeys are worth a moment too. Animals appear throughout Chagall's work not as decoration but as full inhabitants of his world, belonging to the same poetic space as the human figures around them. There is something earthy and tender about them, and just a little mysterious.
The colour is beautiful. It moves from soft, pale washes through to deeper, richer passages that glow in the way his gouaches do. The blues are the colour of a night sky and the ochres burn with a gentle warmth. You feel as though the light is coming from inside the picture rather than falling on it from outside.
This is a genuinely fine work to bring into a home and a collection. It is documented in the catalogue raisonné of Chagall's lithographic output and more than that, it is simply a joy to live with. Collectors who fall for Chagall tend to fall for him completely, and it is not hard to see why. There is nobody else quite like him.
