Gift from the artist to Tériade [Stratis Eleftheriades (1889-1983)], New Year 1950.~Thence by descent to Alice Eleftheriades.~Gift from Alice Eleftheriades Tériade's wife Alice to the present owner.~~This work is sold with a photo-certificate of authenticity from the Comité Chagall.~~This work was executed as a New Year greeting from Chagall to his friend and publisher Tériade at the end of 1949, marking the end of a pivotal year both for Chagall as an artist and for his relationship with Tériade.~~Chagall had returned permanently to France from America in August 1948 and settled at Orgeval to the west of Paris, but the lure of the South and of the Mediterranean was strong. In January of the following year he accepted Tériade's suggestion to join him at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, where the publisher spent half the year. The impact of the Côte d'Azur, the intense colours and the quality of the light were profound. Although Chagall returned to Orgeval in May 1949 he was back at Vence by October and maintained a house in the area for the rest of his life. As he said in an interview in June 1950: 'The lovely light, it is a thousand times beautiful. It would take a volume to describe why this light is better, for there are a thousand subtleties in the light and there even seem to be ideas in the air' (http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/U942176ACME/marc-chagall-painting-a-picture?popup=1, accessed 3rd May 2012).~