Estimated Price:

   £   

Realised Price:

   £   

What is this symbol? This symbol indicates that this auction hose has verified this price result.

Log in or subscribe to view price data

Painted in 1927.

Oil on canvas

The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Dorothea Tanning and Werner Spies.
PROVENANCE

Private Collection, Belgium (acquired from the artist and thence by descent)
Faggionato Fine Arts, London (acquired from the above)
Curt Marcus Gallery, New York (acquired from the above in 1999)
Acquired from the above by the present owner in February 2000
CATALOGUE NOTE

Throughout his career, Ernst used the bird as a symbol of his own identity. The most famous incarnation of this creature was in the series of oils and drawings that he did in the late 1920s and early 1930s of the mythical bird, Loplop. Ernst developed a fantastical narrative for this character that would live on in the many bird-themed paintings and sculptures that he executed up until his death in 1976. The present picture, completed around the time that Ernst was emersed in the world of Loplop, is a wonderfully abstract, Surrealist presentation of the animal that would become his emblem.

According to the artist's wife Dorothea Tanning, this painting is the first version of Ernst's La forêt s'envole (Gracieuse), 1928, which is recorded in the catalogue raisonné (Speis, no. 1301) and is believed to have been destroyed by the German government during the Second World War. The present work, which escaped this fate, was given by the artist to a Belgian family who kept it safely in its possession for several decades.