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Artist or Maker: RENÉ MAGRITTE 1898 - 1967

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Date: Painted in 1947.

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Description: LA NUIT D'AMOUR
Signed Magritte (upper right); titled and dated 1947 on the reverse

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Medium: Oil on canvas

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Dimensions: 21 1/2 by 25 3/4 in. 54.5 by 65.5 cm

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Provenance: Jean Bourjou, Brussels (acquired before 1953)

Private Collection (circa 1975 and sold: Sotheby's, London, December 7, 1998, lot 47)

Private Collection (acquired at the above sale and sold: Christie's, New York, May 9, 2001, lot 39)

Private Collection, Switzerland

Acquired from the above by the present owner

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Exhibited: (possibly) Brussels, Galerie Dietrich, Exposition Magritte, 1948

Brussels, La Sirène, Oeuvres récentes de René Magritte, 1953, no. 24

Louvière, Maisons de Loisirs, René Magritte expose, 1954, no. 11

Brussels, Palais des Beaux Arts, René Magritte, 1954, no. 77

Charleroi, Salle de Bourse, IIIe Salon du Cercle Royal Artistique et Littéraire, 'Rétrospective René Magritte,' 1956, no. 93

Humlebaek, Louisiana Museum, René Magritte, 1983, no. 71

Høvikodden Kunstsentret, Sonja Henies og Niels Onstads Stiftelser, René Magritte, Paintings and Photographs, 1984, no. 61

Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, René Magritte, 1998, no. 144, illustrated in the catalogue

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Published: David Sylvester & Sarah Whitfield, René Magritte, Catalogue raisonné, II: Oil Paintings and Objects, 1931-1948, New York, 1993, no. 623, illustrated p. 383

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Notes:

La Nuit d'amour is one of a series of paintings featuring a nesting flock of birds that Magritte completed in the 1940s. The setting of this picture distinguishes it from the others, which usually feature the birds in a tropical locale reminiscent of Robert Louis Stevenson's fabled Treasure Island. The birds in this picture are depicted amidst a modern, semi-urban landscape, perhaps an acknowledgement of the focus on realism that was taking hold throughout post-war Europe. Symbolic, too, are the burning candle and setting sun, which both call attention to the passage of time.

Magritte's art is renowned for its use of "elective affinities," a term used by Goethe to describe the pairing of two distinct elements. In this picture, that pairing exists between the birds and the leaves, which are one and the same. The leaf-birds is an image of solidarity and intimacy in that the birds are rooted in a common stem, but it is also an image of dependency and nurture, and the date of its conception in the aftermath of the war may have some bearing on Magritte's choice of such an unusually tender subject.