‘Coupe chimérique’ was realised in 1947, just as Arp returned to his art after a four-year hiatus following the tragic death of his wife, Sophie Taeuber-Arp. Cast in bronze from Arp’s plaster model, it is typical of his work in the way that the upper form appears to naturally emerge of its own volition from the vessel below.

Arp’s marble sculpture, ‘Fruit d’étoile’ in our June auction is particularly fascinating because it is only one of twenty-three works that Arp sculpted himself in stone. Here we have the rare chance to sense the artist’s first-hand ‘dialogue’ between his hands and the material. The stone’s various colours and veining lend his sculptures a special vitality, making each piece one of a kind.

At first glance, everything in the painting ‘Portrait d’Arlette’ seems clear-cut, but as is so often the case with Magritte, reality and surrealism merge, opening up a multitude of possible interpretations. Beyond the supposition that the figure was inspired by Botticelli’s ‘Venus’, the rest of the elements: a rose, a glass, a series of ‘bilboquets’ are part of Magritte’s intentional mystery.

‘My painting[s] … evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my pictures, one asks oneself this simple question, “What does that mean?” said Magritte. ‘It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing, it is unknowable’.

Like Arp, Magritte felt that the viewer played a key role in the expression of each artwork. ‘People sometimes ask, “What does this painting represent?”’ he said. ‘… it is the viewer who represents the painting; his feelings and his ideas represent the painting’.