The best artworks are timeless, maintaining an enduring relevance to contemporary society. This Rene Magritte painting is exemplary of exactly that idea. His Surrealist landscapes, scale shifts and poetic iconography painted decades ago create a bridge to our post-internet world of today mediated by screens, digital worlds and alternative currencies. As such, the demand for Magritte paintings from collectors has never been higher.

L'Incendie is, unmistakably,a Magritte featuring his hybridized stand of leaf-trees and forest floor strewn with the artist’s signature Surrealist “iron bells.”

While a good work on canvas by Magritte of the same size as this one will be $8,500,000 to $12,000,000 in today’s market, this work on paper will likely bring $3,500,000 to $5,500,000.

With some painters there is a vast difference in the experience of a painting on canvas versus paper, however, this not so much the case with Magritte as he was exceptionally skilled at painting in gouache. And that is why this work, L'Incendie (1947) is my Buy of the Week.

René Magritte (1898 - 1967)
L'Incendie, 1947
gouache on paper
14 ⅝ x 18 ¼ inches (37.1 x 46.3 cm)
signed Magritte (lower left); signed Magritte, dated 1947, and inscribed "L'Incendie" (on the reverse)

Surrealism and its Legacy
Offered November 18th, 2024
Sothebys, Paris
Estimate: 3,000,000 - 5,000,000 EURO

BUY OF THE WEEK #1

FRIDA KAHLo’S SELF-PORTRAIT: THE STORY BEHIND THE PAINTING.

SALE & ACQUISITION (a sale from one collection to another).