French Customs Detained This Marc Chagall Etching for Two Decades After an Attempted Border Crossing. Now It's Headed for Public Display

Twenty years ago, French border officials stopped a car trying to enter Switzerland. Inside, they found illegal artworks, including an etching by Russian artist Marc Chagall.

The people involved were arrested and fined. The art was taken by customs and largely forgotten.

Chagall's Etching Finds a Home

Now, Chagall’s 1924 etching, L’Acrobate Au Violon (Acrobat with Violin), is finally free. French officials found the piece a few years ago. They recently gave it to the Besançon Museum of Fine Arts and Archeology in eastern France, near the Swiss border. It will be on display this fall.

Chagall, born Moyshe Segal in 1887 in what is now Belarus, came from a religious Jewish family. He studied art in St. Petersburg before moving to Paris. There, he changed his name and found "light, color, liberty, sunshine and a joy for life." He became well-known in Parisian art circles.

Chagall's art was bold, colorful, and mystical. He blended Jewish traditions, Russian folk art, and Western European styles. This created unique, collage-like works such as I and the Village (1911) and Paris Through the Window (1913).

Paris Through the Window shows strange elements like a cat with a human-like face, a man with two faces, and an upside-down train, all in bright, smudgy colors and dark lines.

The recently released Chagall etching is also surreal. It features a main character in a hat and shorts, balancing on one foot on an upright violin. A much smaller person hangs over his arm. Below them, an upside-down chicken floats in the air. Next to the violin, a goat-like animal stands on its front legs, which end in human hands.

Maël Vandewalle, a curator at the Besançon Museum, helped confirm the etching's authenticity. He noted that its dreamlike style, disconnected from reality, is typical of Chagall. The violin and acrobat are also common themes in Chagall's art.

The regional customs director in Besançon explained that the artwork was seized in 2006. Its transporters lacked the necessary documents to take it out of France. During the same event, a 1959 drawing by Ossip Zadkine, a contemporary of Chagall, was also confiscated. This drawing showed a man playing guitar.

The Zadkine drawing has since been given to the Musée Zadkine in Paris.

Chagall's Diverse Talents

Chagall worked in many art forms beyond painting and engraving. In 1945, he designed sets and costumes for Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird in New York. He also created stained glass windows for the Cathedral of Metz in France, the synagogue at the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem, and the United Nations building in New York.

There are 150 copies of the Chagall etching. It is likely worth several thousand euros. This acquisition is a significant moment for the Besançon Museum.

Besançon mayor Ludovic Fagaut said the customs service has "really honored us." He noted that this is the first Marc Chagall work to join the museum's collection.