Sobakévitch, plate XXXII (supplementary suite) from Les Âmes mortes

Sobakévitch, plate XXXII (supplementary suite) from Les Âmes mortes is a significant etching and drypoint work created by Marc Chagall in 1923. This piece is part of a monumental commission Chagall undertook in the 1920s for the celebrated Parisian publisher Ambroise Vollard, intended to illustrate Nikolai Gogol’s satirical epic, Dead Souls (1842). Chagall was tasked with producing 107 illustrations for the deluxe edition, a project that cemented his reputation as a master graphic artist operating within the French cultural sphere.

The medium of etching and drypoint allowed Chagall to execute a distinctively expressive graphic style, utilizing energetic, scratched lines and deep shadows to convey psychological intensity. The subject, Sobakévitch, refers to one of the grotesque landowners visited by the protagonist Chichikov, a character embodying avarice and coarse materialism. Chagall’s interpretation eschews literal depiction, instead compressing the character’s brutal nature into a dense, semi-abstracted form, reflective of the Modernist currents influencing the artist following his move to Paris. This particular plate, categorized as an Illustrated Book component, demonstrates the artist’s characteristic synthesis of Russian literary tradition with a European avant-garde sensibility.

Although the initial sketches and plate production occurred in 1923, the full publishing project was complex and extended through the period of 1923-48, with the final edition appearing only after the deaths of both Vollard and Chagall’s wife, Bella. These powerful prints represent a major moment in 20th-century artistic collaboration and are considered among Chagall’s finest contributions to the printmaking genre. This important work, Sobakévitch, plate XXXII (supplementary suite) from Les Âmes mortes, is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, underscoring the enduring significance of Chagall's illustrations for Gogol's canonical text.