Rene Magritte classic ‘Dominion of Light’, works Monet up for auction in London

Rene Magritte’s paradoxical painting “L’Empire des Lumieres” (Dominion of Light) – depicting a night-time street under a bright blue sky – will be auctioned in London next week and could bring a record price for a work the Belgian surreal.
The painting, described auction house Sothe’s as “a masterpiece of 20th-century art”, has an estimate in excess of more than 45 million pounds ($60 million).

It is the star attraction of Sothe’s spring auction of modern and contemporary art that also features six paintings impression Claude Monet as well as works Picasso, Van Gogh, David Hockney and others.
The 1961 “Dominion of Light” is one in a series of 17 similar oils and 10 other works depicting the scene that Magritte produced from the 1940s to the 1960s.
A Sothe’s employee poses with the artwork Nympheas, 1914-17 Claude Monet, on display ahead of auction at Sothe’s. (REUTERS/Tom Nicholson)
The one going to auction on March 2 was painted for Anne-Marie Gillion Crowet, a friend of Magritte and the daughter of his patron, the Belgian collector Pierre Crowet. It has remained in the family’s hands ever since.
The painting shows a darkened street in Brussels, with the silhouettes of trees and a house with light glowing from windows and a street lamp. Above them is blue sky and white clouds.

“It’s probably one of his most famous images,” Helena Newman, Sothe’s worldwide head of impression and modern art, told Reuters.
“You’ve got this extraordinary, slightly disquieting juxtaposition of day and night at the same time. It is quintessentially surreal. It questions nature and exence.
A Sothe’s employee poses with the artwork ‘Garrow Hill’ David Hockney, on display ahead of auction at Sothe’s. (REUTERS/Tom Nicholson)
“She said the estimate of in excess of 60 million dollars “brings it up to record price territory for Magritte”.
The image has shown up in other guises. A scene in the 1973 movie The Exorc and its poster paid homage to it. It was also the inspiration for the cover of singer-songwriter Jackson Browne’s 1974 album Late for the Sky, with a 50’s Chevy parked outside a house in California. The artwork credit says “if it’s all reet with Magritte”.

The auction also includes five works Monet, painted in the 1880s to 1890s as he moved away from impressionism and with a combined estimate of $50 million. A sixth painting of waterlilies produced in the 1910s is also on offer.
The five include a depiction of a cluster of chrysanthemums inspired the Japanese print maker Hokusai, a scene of ice floes on the River Seine, and the beach at Dieppe.
“They really chart the trajectory of Monet as he moved towards his famous water lily series and as he moves closer towards what will become abstraction,” Newman said.
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