A surrealist still life

Magritte, René, Belgian painter (1898-1967). Autograph drawing signed and inscribed.

€ 65,000.00

Crayon drawing, inscribed with graphite pencil: "pour Nana et Eddy Novarro / amicalement - / René Magritte / 28 janvier 1965".

From the collection of the Romanian photographer and collector Eddy Novarro (ca. 1926-2003), who travelled the world from the 1950s to 1970s portraying many renowned artists who frequently gifted him specimens of their work in appreciation. Novarro portrayed René Magritte on 30 October 1958 - an uncommon shot showing the artist before his painting "L'ami intime" ("The Intimate Friend"), created that same year. The painting features a man in a bowler hat, one of Magritte’s most iconic and recurring motifs, seen from behind, standing on a balcony and staring out over a sunlit landscape. A baguette and a glass of water appear behind his back, ostensibly levitating.

Seven years after Novarro took his picture, Magritte presented him and his wife Nana with the present drawing, depicting "three levitating objects in front of a panoramic landscape [...] In addition to the almost obligatory pipe, a goblet with a baguette and an oversized apple can be seen here, the latter crowned by a table covered with a tablecloth. In this drawing, Magritte accumulates pictorial quotations from his own work, the still-life-like motifs of the baguette and the wine glass obviously referencing the painting that served as the background for the portrait photo of Novarro in 1958" (cf. Müller, Who is Who, p. 10).