Sold for $121 million at Christie’s New York on November 19, the painting The Empire of Lights (1954) by René Magritte becomes on this occasion the most expensive work of the surrealist painter. This historic record invites us to stop at this enigmatic canvas, which notably inspired the film poster The Exorcist (1973).
A Magritte painting breaks records at auction
The image is recognizable among thousands. In a street plunged into darkness, a man stands with his back to him, suitcase in hand, facing the entrance of a house from which emanates a beam of light which complements that emitted by the street lamp to his left. The words “The Exorcist” appear in purple above this 1973 black and white photo, chosen as the poster for one of the greatest horror films in history. If millions of spectators rushed at the time to discover William Friedkin’s frightening feature film, few know that this cult shot, where the exorcist appears in front of the home of the little girl possessed by the devil, was inspired actually one of the most famous painters of the 20th century, Rene Magritteand its enigmatic painting The Empire of Lights.
Under the hammer at Christie’s New York last Tuesday November 19, one of the versions of this work painted in 1954 was sold $121 million (more than 114.6 million euros). A colossal sum which marks two sales records: one for the Belgian artist, who on this occasion passes the symbolic threshold of 100 million dollars, and the other for a surrealist artist, in the middle of the centenary year of the great movement which marked the first half of the 20th century. It must be said that The Empire of Lights has already proven its success: in 2022, a smaller version of the painting, dated 1961, was sold for $79 million at the house Sotheby’s London, far exceeding his estimate.
The Empire of Lightsthe work that inspired The Exorcist
And The Empire of Lights of 1961 acquired such value, it is first of all because of its subject. A residential street appears frontally between dog and wolf: where the clear and cloudy blue sky announces, above, a scene captured in broad daylight, the darkness of the street and the trees, of which we can only distinguish the outlines of the foliage, evoke rather the twilight of a landscape behind which the sun has already set.
Although no living being is visible on this canvas, the orange light illuminating the windows of the central house evokes the presence of its inhabitants, while the lit street lamp sets a surprising – if not distressing – atmosphere. Here, the disturbing strangeness to which the great representative of pictorial surrealism has accustomed us lies in this temporal and narrative ambiguity, which creates a great mystery.
A series that has become a real obsession for Magritte
Considered today as one of the most important paintings by the Belgian painter, the work is also the most repeated painting by the artist, as confirmed by the president of the Fondation Magritte Charly Herscovici to Echos in 2017. Like Claude Monet before him, orAndy Warhol after him, the artist made The Empire of Lights a series of oils on canvas of which seventeen versions exist: the first dates from 1948 and the last, unfinished, from 1967, the year of the artist’s death. One of its versions is currently on display in “Surrealism”, the exhibition-event dedicated to the movement at Pompidou Center.
While on the version of The Empire of Lights put up for sale by Sotheby’s in 2022, two windows on the right on the first floor of the house are lit, it is the two on the left which are seen lit on the one from 1954. The wider framing of the latter also allows us to reveal at foreground a fundamental element: a watercourse along the sidewalk, in which the light of the street lamp is reflected. It is precisely in this particular painting from the series that René Magritte depicted it for the first time.
The masterpieces of the Mica Ertegun collection, by David Hockney to Joan Miró
Auction record for the year 2024, the Magritte painting sold by Christie’s comes from the impressive collection of the designer, interior decorator and philanthropist Mica Ertegunwhich contains many masterpieces signed David HockneyPeter Schlesinger or more Joan Miro. Died in 2023, at the age of 97, the American was in fact one of the first major collectors of surrealist artists, helping to make them legendary.
