A souvenir program for the inauguration ceremonies for the Marc Chagall mosaic installed in the Vence Cathedral in 1979.
Marc Chagall lived in Vence from 1950 to 1966. It was an important period in his life when he conceived and created a series of works related to the Bible. Some of this work led to the creation of the Marc Chagall National Museum in Nice.
In 1979 Chagall agreed to design and oversee the execution of a mosaic for the Vence Cathedral. It was placed on the northern wall of the baptistery inside a magnificent plasterwork frame on the wall, originally meant to house a large painting, that was several hundred years old and had sat vacant for quite some time. Today this mosaic is one of the main reasons that many people visit the Cathedral. A special coat of arms was engraved in stone and placed in the empty medallion on the frontpiece of the plasterwork at the same time.
Chagall worked with a mosaic artist by the name of Tharin during the months of August and September 1979 and together they created this piece with measures 170cm by 235cm. It portrays the story of “Moses Saved From the Waters” as told in Exodus 2:1-10.
This little booklet looks to be a souvenir program from the inauguration of the mosaic which was held on December 16, 1979. It contains information about Chagall and the mosaic. Additionally, an exhibition was held in the Cathedral from December 16 through December 31 of 31 pieces pieces of art created by Chagall all related to the Bible. Each of these pieces is listed in the program. The booklet consists entirely of text, it contains no images.
Note that the cover of the booklet is blank so I have used the title page above instead.
The booklet is in French but I have also created an English version.
Download a high quality PDF reproduction of the booklet (7mb)
Download a high quality PDF of the booklet in French (13mb)
Download a high quality PDF of the booklet in English (3mb)
[click on any image to see sample pages of the original version]