In a windowless room with a cloud-strewn sky for wallpaper rest disproportionately sized household items in René Magritte Personal Values (Les valeurs personelles), 1952, Series 2. Of this work Magritte states, "…From the point of view of immediate utility, what is one to make of the idea that, for example, there should be a sky covering the walls of a room, that an enormous match should be lying on the carpet, and that a huge comb should be propped on a bed? Such an idea is indeed powerless to solve a utilitarian problem posed by life in society. The social individual requires a repertoire of ideas in which, for example, a comb becomes the symbol that makes it possible to combine certain events in which he, as a social individual, contrives to act in a society in conformity with movements society can understand: the comb separates the individual hairs, the comb will be manufactured, sold, etc. In my house, the comb (and other objects, too) has lost precisely this "social character." It has become a useless luxury, capable of "disarming" the viewer…" (Meuris, pg. 140).

Created after the 1952 original oil on canvas René Magritte Personal Values (Les valeurs personelles), 1952, Series 2, this original color lithograph was published and printed by Philippe Moreno, Paris in 2003. This work is signed 'Magritte' in facsimile in graphite color in the lower right margin and signed in pencil in the lower left margin by the representative of ADAGP representing the Magritte Succession, Mr. Charly Herscovici. Numbered 246/300 in pencil in the lower left margin (from the total edition of 360, 300 examples numbered 1-300, 45 artist's proofs numbered 1-45, and 15 copies reserved for the Succession Magritte), this work is stamped with the ADAGP blindstamp in the lower left margin and the Succession Magritte blindstamp in the lower right margin. On the back of this work is an extensive block of printed text stating the title, provenance, tirage, and details of the original oil on canvas.

Documented and illustrated in:

1. Meuris, Jacques. Magritte. London: Greenwich Editions, 1988. Original 1952 oil on canvas illustrated on pg. 141 and discussed on pg. 140.

About the framing:

René Magritte Personal Values (Les valeurs personelles), 1952, Series 2 is museum grade conservation framed in a complementary moulding with silk mats and optical grade Plexiglas.