A superb impression of the definitive state, from the album edition of 180 (apart from the pencil-signed and numbered edition of 25). One of three lithographs by Chagall commissioned to illustrate the essay "La place de la gréve" by Gérard Bauër, part of the album Regards sur Paris comprising 10 individual essays by the members Board of the Académie Goncourt which were illustrated by 33 original lithographs by 10 different artists. Published by André Sauret, Paris, January, 1963; printed at Atelier Fernand Mourlot , Paris.

The idea of devoting a series of original lithographs to the subject of the circus stemmed from the publisher and art dealer Ambroise Vollard, for whom Chagall had already executed a number of book illustrations. Vollard was an inpassioned circus-goer; he possessed his own box at the Cirque d’Hiver in Paris and often took his artist friends, including Chagall, there with him. In 1936 he commissioned Georges Rouault to produce a series of color aqutints on circus themes. Chagall executed preparatory gouaches for his circus series in the late 1920’s. After Vollard’s death in 1939, however, the project itself was not further pursues, although circus motifs frequently appeared in Chagall;s paintings and graphic works. It was the publisher Efstratios Teriade, with whom the artist had been on very close terms since the end of the 1940’s, who encouraged him to complete the cylce. Chagall thus resumed work on the circus series in 1962, using the already existing gouaches. The 38 lithographs comprising the finished album were published by Teriade in 1967. The accompanying texts were also composed by Chagall; thus the work is a livre d’artiste in the strict sense off the word, the mutually complimentary text and imagery having both been created by Chagall.

Mourlot 351

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