After Marc Chagall - La flûte enchantée - image-1

Lot 333 Dα

After Marc Chagall - La flûte enchantée

Auction 1059 - overview Cologne
27.11.2015, 18:00 - Modern Art
Estimate: 20.000 € - 25.000 €
Result: 29.760 € (incl. premium)

After Marc Chagall

La flûte enchantée
1967

Colour lithograph on wove paper with watermark "Arches" 100.2 x 65.2 cm (101.5 x 66.5 cm) Framed under glass. Signed and numbered. Proof 67/200. Chagall designed the composition of the poster for the premiere of "Die Zauberflöte" by Mozart on 19 Februar 1967 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, as well as the costumes and stage set. The present sheet is one of 200 signed and numbered proofs before letters. Printed by Mourlot, Paris 1967. - Minimally browned.

The Metropolitan Opera of New York, the “Met”, was founded in 1883 and was located at Broadway and 39th Street until 1966. In that year the opera moved into the newly built Lincoln Center, together with other cultural institutions. In 1964 Marc Chagall was commissioned by the board of directors of the Met to create two gigantic murals, “The Triumph of Music” and “The Sources of Music”, which adorn the lobby of the opera house. He additionally received a commission to design the stage sets and costumes for the production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's “Zauberflöte” that was presented at the Met from February 1967 onwards. The artist had already provided the designs for various ballet and opera productions since the 1940s, for example, “Aleko” by Leonid Massine for the Ballet Theatre of New York and Stravinsky's “Firebird” for the Met. In 1963/64 he also created the large ceiling painting in the auditorium of Paris's Operá Garnier. The poster motif for the “Zauberflöte” derives from a detail of the design sketch for the wall painting “The Sources of Music”. In that work Chagall united thematic aspects from Mozart's opera with motifs from the Bible, and this is also apparent in the paradisiacal scenery of the poster motif.

Catalogue Raisonné

Sorlier CS 38; Sorlier Posters 107