Magritte's Undiscovered Reality in Le Choeur Des Sphinges | Christie's

Why It Matters

The work demonstrates persistent market appetite for rare surrealist pieces and illustrates how fresh visual narratives can elevate both scholarly discourse and auction valuations.

Key Takeaways

• Luminous woodland scene juxtaposed with surreal, foliage-filled forms.
• Artist revisits 1920s hand-painted collage technique in later work.
• Enigmatic pipe silhouettes act as portals to alternate reality.
• Painting emphasizes perception shift revealing hidden wonder in plain sight.
• Christie's highlights piece as rare example of undiscovered Magritte reality.

Summary

Christie’s latest auction preview spotlights a previously unseen work titled *Le choeur des sphinges*, positioned as an “undiscovered reality” within the Magritte canon. The video frames the painting as a luminous woodland under an azure sky, punctuated by five floating, pipe‑like silhouettes that appear to be carved from the very foliage they hover above. These surreal forms invite viewers to question whether they are additions to the scene or apertures into another layer of existence.

The artist, identified in the commentary as McGreed, revisits the hand‑painted collage methods he pioneered in the 1920s. By rendering paper‑cutout aesthetics with brushstrokes, he creates what Max once called “collages painted entirely by hand.” The technique lends the piece an elegant simplicity that characterizes his later years, while the enigmatic forms function as visual portals, suggesting alternate realities concealed within ordinary perception.

Key quotations underscore the work’s philosophical thrust: “the wonder of the world is not concealed, but waiting in plain sight, revealed by the gentlest shift in how we see.” The narration also notes that the foliage‑filled pipes act as “apertures through which another layer of reality momentarily surfaces,” reinforcing the theme of hidden worlds revealed through altered sight.

For collectors and the broader art market, the painting represents a rare convergence of surrealist heritage and contemporary reinterpretation. Its debut at Christie’s signals strong demand for previously unknown pieces tied to iconic movements, potentially reshaping valuation benchmarks for mid‑20th‑century surrealism and encouraging renewed scholarly interest in hand‑crafted collage techniques.

Original Description

Throughout his career, René Magritte accumulated a personal inventory of everyday objects and motifs that he deployed in a variety of combinations or arrangements — apples, eggs, rocks, birds, umbrellas, a glass, clouds in a perfect blue sky, to name but a few.

As the artist explained: ‘The creation of new objects, the transformation of known objects; a change of substance in the case of certain objects: a wooden sky, for instance; the use of words in association with images; the misnaming of an object… the use of certain visions glimpsed between sleeping and waking, such in general were the means devised to force objects out of the ordinary, to become sensational, and so establish a profound link between consciousness and the external world.’

René Magritte (1898-1967), Le choeur des sphinges, 1964. Oil on canvas. 39½ x 31⅞ in (100.4 x 81 cm). Estimate: £5,000,000-8,000,000. Offered in The Art of the Surreal Evening Sale on 5 March 2026 at Christie’s in London

Find out more: https://www.christies.com/en/stories/10-things-to-know-about-rene-magritte-1b9558962cc34e10a9bb303b116dbb33