René Magritte’s Les eaux profondes | Christie’s

Les eaux profondes is an iconic, enigmatic work within René Magritte’s oeuvre, steeped in the intense sense of mystery that defined his work during one of the most intriguing periods of his career. Created during the dark days of the German Occupation of Belgium in the Second World War, the painting plunges the viewer into the artist’s idiosyncratic world of poetic Surrealism, its confluence of familiar yet strange objects conjuring an uncanny, disquieting atmosphere. While Magritte had previously used the title Les eaux profondes (“Deep Waters“) for a photographic portrait of his wife from 1934, here the phrase adds to the inscrutable atmosphere of the composition—the scene is at once eerily still and silent, yet brimming with a simmering tension beneath the surface. David Sylvester dated this work 1941, due to its inclusion in an exhibition held in November-December of this year at the Galerie Dietrich, Brussels. Magritte later inscribed 1942 on the reverse of the canvas. ‌ As we