The Birthday, 1923, oil on canvas, 810mm x 1005mm, by Marc Chagall, copy by Derek Kosbab.

While Marc Chagall’s original was painted in oil on a rectangular canvas 810mm x 1005mm, my copy omits the right-hand side 200mm that shows the foot of a bed and a scarf on the wall above the bed.

Mark Chagall wrote of this painting: ‘For my birthday in 1915, Bella arrived with a bouquet. This reality was immediately transformed in me, a chemical process was set in motion; memory, recollection do the same. Monet was faithful to the trees that stood before him, but these were the trees he needed. In the same way, I start with an initial concrete and physical shock, with a precise thing, and proceed toward something more abstract.’

It is interesting to note about this painting how much appears to be wrong. For example, notice how the wall-floor line under the dresser on the left does not connect with the wall-floor line that runs horizontally a third of the way up from the bottom of the painting. Then notice how that particular horizontal wall-floor line becomes a wavy line on the far right side of the picture, and how on the left edge of the horizontal wall-floor line, there should be a vertical line indicating the corner of the intersecting walls, yet none exists.  Then, above Chagall’s floating body, on the wall under the window, there is a bluish-grey patch on the wall. The left-hand corner of this patch should appear under Chagall’s bottom and legs, but does not. And, while the stool probably should have four legs it only has three, and one of these legs does not touch the seat. Similarly, the back right-hand leg of the dresser is missing.

But, all in all, the painting is remembrance of a wonderfully romantic event lovingly represented.

$1,500.00 via PayPal