Lalique La Trahison des Images

By now, the tobacco pipe image had become famous among the painter’s works thanks to La Trahison des images (The Treachery of Images), the masterpiece he painted in 1929. His pipe is highly realistic and the inscription beneath it, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (this is not a pipe), aptly illustrates one of Magritte’s principles: “… In a painting, the words are of the same substance as the images”. One day he sent Michel Foucault a copy of the work and wrote on the back, “The title does not contradict the drawing; it affirms it in a different way”. When Marcel Mariën published Magritte’s first monograph, in 1943, Magritte had planned to include a picture of this work but changed his mind, fearing that, in occupied Belgium, it would get him consigned to an asylum. La Trahison des images had a wide and immediate impact, especially in Paris, where Salvador Dalí recorded his enthusiasm in a Spanish journal. To this day, La Trahison des images remains a standalone embodiment of Magritte.