Dated 1923, it is closely related in style to cat. 45, a work which must have been painted in January 1923 or shortly after. If the present work was completed by say, 15 January, it could have been the piece entitled ‘Nocturne’ in the catalogue of the young artists’ exhibition at the Galerie George Giroux (23.1.1): certainly, there is an old small circular leather label with Magritte’s name on it stuck to the stretcher which suggests that the painting was shown in an exhibition early on, and no other exhibition is recorded in which a work which a work of this title was shown; at the same time, cat. 38 could have been the ‘Nocturne’ in the Giroux exhibition.
All that is known about its history before it was consigned to Sotheby’s, London, for a sale there on December 1990, is that it was given to the owner in the early 1950s by a member of his family.

Provenance: Private Collection of a writer for Le XXème Siècle
Gift from the above to a Collector in the early 1950s 
Sotheby’s London, Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture, 5th December 1990
Private Collection, London

Exhibition: Brussels Giroux 1923, no. 96 (? Or cat. 38)

Literature: David Sylvester & Sarah Whitfield, René Magritte Catalogue Raisonné, Oil Paintings 1916-1930, Vol. I, p. 147, no. 44 (illustrated in black and white)

Stern Pissarro Gallery, Late 19th and 20th Century European Painting, 66 St. James's Street, London SW1A 1NE, United Kingdom