Marc Chagall

MARC CHAGALL (Vitebsk, Belarus, 1887 – Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, 1985)
"The Mystical Crucifixion," 1950.
Color lithograph.
Signed and dated on the plate.
Published in *Derrière le miroir*, no. 27–28, Galerie Maeght, Paris, March 1950.
Measurements: 38 x 28 cm.

This lithograph is from the publication *Derrière le miroir*, a magazine published by Galerie Maeght and closely associated with leading figures in European modern art. Dedicated to Marc Chagall, issue 27–28 was published to coincide with the artist’s exhibition held at Galerie Maeght in 1950.

The publication includes a list of the works on display, among them the important collection of 118 original etchings for Gogol’s *Les Âmes Mortes*, published by Tériade—a seminal work within Chagall’s graphic oeuvre. This context places the piece at a particularly significant moment in his literary and visual universe.

The image brings together several essential motifs from Chagall’s imagery: the rooster, the hybrid figure, the blue night, the village, and the star suspended over the landscape. The contrast between the intense red and the deep blue reinforces the poetic dimension of a composition linked to memory, dreams, and the artist’s Russian folk world.

Marc Chagall was one of the key figures in 20th-century art. Trained in Vitebsk, St. Petersburg, and Paris, he developed a highly personal artistic language that integrated elements of Cubism, Fauvism, Symbolism, and the Eastern European Jewish tradition.

His work is represented in institutions such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate in London, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, the Musée National Marc Chagall in Nice, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, among many others.