Description

The etchings for La Fontaine’s Fables were commissioned by the famous art dealer Ambroise Vollard and his choice of the ‘romantic’ artist Chagall to illustrate the ‘classical’ French masterpiece created a considerable furore at the time, even being debated in the Chamber of Deputies. Vollard answered the question of Why Chagall? by saying, simply because his aesthetic seems to me in a certain sense akin to La Fontaine’s, at once sound and delicate, realistic and fantastic.

They are considered one of the great suites of the 20th century.