MAGRITTE (René). - Lot 265

Lot 265
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MAGRITTE (René). - Lot 265
MAGRITTE (René). "Portrait of Jeanne Lempereur-Fostier" (1952). Original graphite drawing, signed and titled "En attendant le miracle" lower right, undated [Châtelet, July 1952]. Verso: Nu féminin, pencil sketch by Hector Lempereur. Size: 28.5 x 19 cm. Jeanne Lempereur-Fostier was the wife of Emile Lempereur, leader of the Cercle d'Art de Châtelet, who often invited Magritte to the exhibitions he organized there. The drawing was made in July 1952, when Magritte, accompanied by his wife Georgette, Paul Colinet and Laura Bellini, a young Roman artist receiving a travel grant, visited photographer Emile Chavepeyer of Châtelet. In a booklet by Emile Lempereur entitled "Ceci est un Magritte ou Derrière les ombres magrittiennes du pays de Charleroi" (Liège, La Vie Wallonne, [1998], pp. 148-177), Lempereur writes: "[...] It was then that I met Magritte. Emile Chavepeyer had invited him to drop by before visiting the exhibitions. He arrived in the late afternoon. [...]. It was in Emile's photographer's store that everything took place [...]. After a cup of coffee and cookies, Emile Chavepeyer struck up a conversation about aesthetics and ethics. I attached the bell of surrealism, which Magritte and Colinet trace back to Traza and Dada [...]. Paul Colinet reads some poems written on the train on the way here [...]. Suddenly, Magritte asks Hector [Chavepeyer] for a sheet of paper, and he hands him the one on which he has sketched a female nude. On the reverse, in a matter of minutes, Magritte produced a head of my wife, which he signed and accompanied with a dedication: 'En attendant le miracle' [Waiting for the miracle]. We toured both exhibitions without Magritte saying a word. Then we went to a café where, between two glasses, prompted by Emile Chavepeyer, Magritte let slip shreds of memories of his youth [...]". In a letter to Marcel Mariën dated July 21, 1952 (in La Destination, p. 288), Magritte also recounts this visit: "[...] Took the streetcar to Châtelineau with a misunderstanding, needed a cab to arrive 2 hours late at the Chapeveyer brothers', one of whom, Hector, an ex-Prix de Rome student, has a virtuosity worthy of recognition. Reception with the schoolteacher [...], reading by Colinet of the six poems written on the train, sketches by Hector and Bellini and me, visit to an exhibition by the cercle de Châtelet [...].
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