Study for an etching made of the Lamentation of Jeremiah, 1956

Marc Chagall Study for an Etching made of the Lamentation of Jeremiah, 1956 original drawing, pen and Indian ink, lithographic pencil and pencil on paper stamped fifth estate signature of ‘Chagall’ 37.9 x 28.2 cm Provenance: The Estate of the Artist and thence by descent Authentication: A certificate from the committee Chagall will accompany this drawing. Note: Chagall carefully selected biblical themes for his two illustrated Bible books. His meticulous approach conveys how intensively he must have contemplated the existence of humanity and the human belief in God. By the end of the first passage of his artistic voyage through the Old Testament (in 1956 with his series “La Bible”), he had impressively produced 135 original works of graphic art (105 etchings and 30 lithographs). Our drawing is a study for the etching which was part of this series. The Book of Jeremiah is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, and the second of the Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. His book is intended as a message to the Jews in exile in Babylon, explaining the disaster of exile as God’s response to Israel’s pagan worship: the people, says Jeremiah, are like an unfaithful wife and rebellious children, their infidelity and rebelliousness made judgement inevitable, although restoration and new covenant is foreshadowed. Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and its Temple and exiled its king and many of the leading citizens in 586 BC, ending Judah’s existence as an independent or quasi-independent kingdom and inaugurating the Babylonian exile. The book echoes the sadness and grief of the Jewish people at this moment of exile. In our drawing the prophet can be seen wiping away a tear.