René Magritte

The Happy Donor features several of the artist’s ‘classic’ elements: the figure of the man in the bowler hat is set against a nocturnal landscape, creating a play of light that contrasts with the interior of the house; the bell is positioned on a low wall in the foreground. The title is thought to allude to the kindness of Jean Coquelet, curator of the Musée d’Ixelles from 1957 to 1987. In 1966, the year before his death, Magritte, grateful to the curator for organising the first retrospective dedicated to him in 1959, allowed the museum to acquire the painting *The Happy Donor* for a modest sum. Both ambiguous and straightforward to interpret, this work is considered one of the masterpieces in the museum’s collections.

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