These two sculptures, round in shape and carved from Rognes stone, portray Bathsheba, the adulterous woman of the Bible seduced by David, who then killed her husband to conceal the crime. In their shapes and in the stone used, these low reliefs, designed like a diptych, are in a class of their own within Marc Chagall’s monumental body of work. An initial sculpture portrays Bathsheba naked, surprised in bathing by David, holding his harp, in a sitting position similar to that in the wash Nude [Nu] (1949) and the platter Bathsheba Surprised by David [Bethsabée surprise par David] (1953). The second sculpture shows Bathsheba undulating around a cockerel, here symbolizing desire and carnal union, with David portrayed in the background. Fully occupying the circular space of its opulent forms, Bathsheba’s body is an ode to roundness and to the fullness of curves. It becomes the subject of a plastic exploration of volume through carving, echoing Chana Orloff’s Femme accroupie (1925, bronze, MNAM, Paris).
The stonework, playing on the sinuosity of engraved, incised, and chiseled lines, reveals dancing, sensual arabesque forms in keeping with the circular shape of the stones and the carnal theme. The color of the stone, similar to wine lees and evoking the porphyry red used since Antiquity, is adorned with lacy white flecks lending an imperial, monolithic force to the whole. A far cry from the conventional portrayal of the low relief David and Bathsheba [David et Bethsabée] (1982 - 1983), the monumentality of the bodies, treated in full, round volumes, contrasts here with the landscape in the background, more schematic and acerate. This graphic piece evokes the lithographs created for the Bible and published by Verve (1960), including those devoted to Ruth and Booz. The same search for circularity is apparent there, and is equally present in the beach stones painted by the artist in the same period, as well as beforehand in the principles of composition of the paintings and of the grand, monumental décor.
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Marc CHAGALL, in collaboration with Lanfranco LISARELLI, Bathsheba I (Bethsabée I), 1973, vence stone, 24 x 26 3/16 x 6 1/2 in. (61 x 66.5 x 16.5 cm), Private collection © ADAGP, Paris, 2024