Mar 04, 2021 - Sale 2560

Sale 2560 - Lot 352

Price Realized: $ 6,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 8,000
RENÉ MAGRITTE (after)
Le Fils de l'Homme.

Color lithograph, 1973. 777x595 mm; 30 5/8x23 1/2 inches, full margins. Signed, titled, annotated and numbered 41/150 by Georgette Magritte, the artist's wife, in pencil, lower right. Printed by Mourlot, Paris, with the blind stamp lower right. A very good impression of this large lithograph with strong colors.

Based on Magritte's (1898-1967, see lots 349-353
) same-titled oil painting from 1964 now in a private collection. Le Fils de l'Homme (or The Son of Man) was painted by Magritte as a self-portrait. Among his most famous paintings, the subject was used in this collaborative lithograph between the artist's estate, under the direction of the artist's widow Georgette Magritte, and the renowned Parisian lithographer Fernand Mourlot.

The green apple which alludes to the painting's title, a Biblical reference to Adam, and figures so prominently in the image, floating in front of the man's face, was a repeated motif in Magritte's work. It was also used in his 1966 oil painting Le Jeu De Morre, owned by Paul McCartney, which purportedly inspired the Beatles to name their record company "Apple Corps," and then in turn for Steve Jobs to designate his company "Apple Computer."