Lot 55 D

In “Daphnis and Chloe” the ancient Greek poet Longus tells the story of two foundlings who grow up with shepherds on the island of Lesbos, are separated, find their way back to each other after passing through several trials, fall in love and finally live together happily. This narrative in the tradition of Greek pastoral poetry deals with the themes of innocence, betrayal, divine vengeance and, finally, the love which conquers all. Longus integrates the development of the story, which is characterised by numerous plot twists, into two seasonal cycles.
When the publisher Tériade (1897-1983) drew Marc Chagall’s attention to this story in 1952 and asked him to create illustrations for it, the artist was immediately delighted with the idea. That same year he and his second wife, Valentina Brodsky, known as Vava, travelled to the Greek island of Poros to find inspiration in its landscapes and architecture and the gleaming light of the south. During his first journey, but particularly the second one, in 1954, he created the initial watercolours, pastels and gouaches dealing with this theme. Then, from 1957, Chagall – working together with the printmaker Charles Sorlier (1921-1968) in the studio of Fernand Mourlot – began converting the 42 gouaches that had been prepared into colour lithographs. Because the lithographic colours possessed an entirely different quality, usually being more fluid and transparent, he worked with up to 25 colours on individual sheets, creating prints that display an enormous chromatic intensity. As Ulrike Gauss writes in the catalogue on the Sorlier collection: “with this technique, Chagall developed a vibrant ground against which the formulation of the narrative but also the animals and fantasy creatures added by the artist stand out luminously. In individual sheets, viewers can even follow the artist’s search for a satisfying form, since the contour lines are sometimes not filled in and individual patches of colour turn into plants or animals” (cited in Marc Chagall. Die Lithographien, exh. cat. Stuttgart 1998, p. 139). But every sheet offers a striking display of the artist’s intense colours and seemingly inexhaustible power of invention. “Daphnis et Chloé” is not just Chagall’s most important lithographic work, it is also a masterpiece of the art of illustration in the 20th century.