Marc Chagall (1887-1985) Plate 3 From Four Tales of the Arabian Nights, 1948

Marc Chagall (1887-1985) Plate 3 from the series “Four Tales of the Arabian Nights”, 1948, also titled “Then He Spent The Night With Her Embracing”

Published: Pantheon Books, New York
Medium: Lithograph
Sheet Size: H 43cm x W 23cm
Year: 1948
Edition: 90, this example 59/90
Signature: Hand signed in pencil, Marc Chagall
Literature: M. 38; see C. books 18)

A very rare example of Chagall’s first major and most important lithography series “Arabian Nights”

Vichy France was an unsafe place for Jews to live, so Chagall, his wife and daughter fled to New York for the duration of the war (and a few years after it). His printmaking thus far had predominantly consisted of etchings. In 1948, however, he produced his first major lithography series, ‘Arabian Nights’, depicting four stories from the collected Middle Eastern and South Asian folk tales known as Four Tales of the Arabian Nights.

Chagall was renowned for the rich palette of his paintings, before Matisse’s death in 1954, Picasso said that ‘Chagall will soon be the only painter left who understands colour’. Lithography offered him the chance to show that same richness in prints, investing the images with a sense of magic that is integral to his visual storytelling.