La leçon de musique
1965
René Magritte's 'La leçon de musique' is a 1965 oil on canvas that presents one of the artist's characteristic surrealist enigmas. The painting combines mysterious figuration with Magritte's signature style of questioning reality and perception.
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Location
- Sotheby's, New York, NY
- Spotted At
- Auction House · Sotheby'sView on map
🔨 Auction Lot
Surrealism & Its Legacy
March 15, 2023
Estimate: $2,300,000 to $3,500,000
Lot 15
Spotted works by René Magritte
Artists in conversation
Giorgio de Chirico
Italian · b. 1888
De Chirico pioneered metaphysical painting with enigmatic interiors and mysterious figures that directly influenced Magritte's surrealist approach. His dreamlike scenes combining ordinary objects in unsettling spatial arrangements closely mirror the interior mystery and philosophical questioning found in La leçon de musique.
Paul Delvaux
Belgian · b. 1897
As a fellow Belgian surrealist, Delvaux created hauntingly mysterious figurative oil paintings that share Magritte's precise realist technique applied to dreamlike and enigmatic scenarios. His interior scenes with figures suspended in ambiguous psychological states parallel the musical and mysterious atmosphere of this specific work.
Salvador Dalí
Spanish · b. 1904
Dalí worked in the same surrealist tradition using meticulous oil painting technique to depict mysterious figures and symbolic objects including musical instruments in enigmatic interior and exterior spaces. His precise photorealistic rendering of impossible or unsettling scenes directly parallels Magritte's method in La leçon de musique.
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