ArtistChagall, Marc

Artist Years1887-1985

Artist NationalityRussian, French

TitleThe Fox and the Turkeys

Yearca. 1930

MediumPrint > Etching

DimensionsPlate: 11.9 X 9.6 inches
Sheet: 15 X 11 inches

Catalog ReferenceMeyer-Cramer 22

Accession NumberRC1470

NotesIn 1927, Chagall began working on another project for Vollard, a series of etchings illustrating The Fables of La Fontaine. In these plates we move from the fantastic Russia of Chagall’s imagination and memory to the more dream-like world of ancient myth and fable, told and retold, changing from time to time and place to place, but ultimately always the same. Technically these works differ greatly from those of the Dead Souls. As Meyer comments, "Compared with the last sheets for Dead Souls, in the new plates the painterly content appears enormously increased. Chagall now foregoes the application of aquatint and use of the rocking tool; also dry point technique is scarcely evident. Instead, he does everything by means of etching, and covers the engraved surface with stopping out varnish, a combination that makes for intensive painterly effects. The etching needle draws the most delicately ramified foliage and bush patterns, the texture of plumage and soft fur, and through shadings and cross-hatchings gives a range of tonalities . . . from white to a deep black. . . . Thus each picture is the result of a long series of working stages in the course of which the pictorial design in light and dark is slowly worked out in a process comparable to the building up of the color structure in a painting." The Fables illustrate the grand themes of life that interested Chagall in his other works, especially the Biblle: love, death, and human folly. One of our etchings tells the story of the wanderer who was welcomed into the cave of a family of satyrs. After watching him first blow upon his hands to warm them and then upon his soup to cool it, the satyrs become fearful and ask him to leave, deciding that there is no trusting a man who can blow both hot and cold. In another, a fox and a goat leap into a well together then find they cannot get out. The fox suggests that the goat let him climb up its back and then out of the well, promising to pull the goat up after he is free. The goat agrees, only to be lectured by the fox on the stupidity about jumping into wells out of which one cannot climb. The moral is "better think of the outcome before you begin."

The etchings for The Fables were executed by Chagall between 1927 and 1930. In 1952 André Tériade published them in two volumes. The Fables was issued in an edition of 200 portfolios on Montval, 40 of which also contained a suite of the etchings on japon nacre and 85 of which contained a suite with hand-coloring by Chagall. In addition, there were 15 portfolios hors commerce. There were also 100 sets of the etchings only on paper with wide margins, each of which was signed and numbered (but not hand-colored).