The Talmud Teacher
1922
Medium
drypoint in black on laid paper (artist's proof)
Dimensions
plate: 24.5 x 18.9 cm (9 5/8 x 7 7/16 in.) sheet: 35.6 x 27 cm (14 x 10 5/8 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gerhard E. Pinkus
Accession Number
2000.45.7
Art Historical Context
Marc Chagall’s *The Talmud Teacher* (1922) captures a quiet moment of Jewish religious study with the artist’s characteristic blend of memory, symbolism, and gentle fantasy. Created as a drypoint—an intaglio technique in which the scratches directly into a metal plate—the work displays the soft, velvety burr that gives each line a rich, tactile quality. Printed in black on laid paper as an artist’s proof, the image reflects Chagall’s deep connection to his Eastern European Jewish roots during a period when he was reestablishing himself in Paris after the First World War. Though modest in scal...
About the Artist
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall, born Moishe Shagal on July 7, 1887, in Liozna near Vitebsk in the Russian Empire (now Belarus), grew up as the eldest of nine children in a devout Jewish family confined to the Pale of Settlement. His father worked as a herring merchant's porter, while his mother sold groceries from home, instilling in young Chagall a deep connection to Hasidic Judaism and Eastern European folklore a...