"In love lies true art: that is my technique, my religion; the new and old religion handed down to us from times long past…..are not painters inspired by love? In our life there is a single colour, as on an artist’s palette, which provides the meaning of life and art and that is the Colour of Love."
—Marc Chagall
Fernand Mourlot considered Chagall's Daphne and Chloe series to be one of "the most important graphic works that Marc Chagall has created thus far." Chagall dedicated three years to this project and undertook a series of 42 lithographs that perhaps defined his career. Abandoning the traditional practice of first producing a black stone or drawing stone which outlines most of the composition and reduces the subsequent color plates to merely adding detail, Chagall chose to create lithographic compositions from pure color just as he would a painting.
Daphne and Chloe, the two romantic heroes of Greek writer, Longus, are two childhood friends who undergo the trials and tribulations of growing up and, consequently, falling in love in the rich Mediterranean landscapes from which Chagall drew inspiration.
Marc Chagall, La fable de Syringe, 1954-1956, gouache on paper, Centre Pompidou
La Fable de Syringe (The Syrinx Fable), plate 24 from Daphnis et Chloé (M. 332, see C. bks 46)
1961 Lithograph in colors, on Arches paper, with full margins. I. 16 3/4 x 12 3/4 in. (42.5 x 32.4 cm) S. 21 1/4 x 15 in. (54 x 38.1 cm) Signed and numbered 33/60 in pencil (there was also an unsigned book edition of 250), published by Tériade Éditeur, Paris, framed.