La Mariée is a 1950

1950 in art

-Awards:*Archibald Prize: William Dargie - Sir Leslie McConnan*Audubon Artists Gold Medal - Richmond Barthé-Works:*Marc Chagall - La Mariée*Alberto Giacometti - The Chariot*L. S...

 painting

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 by Russian-French artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

 Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...

.

Description

Described by a Chagall fan as "an ode to young love".

Notting Hill

In the 1999

1999 in film

The year 1999 in film involved several noteworthy events and has been called "The Year That Changed Movies". Several significant feature films, including Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, Pedro Almodóvar's first Oscar-winning film All About My Mother, science fiction The Matrix, Deep...

 film Notting Hill

Notting Hill (film)

Notting Hill is a 1999 British romantic comedy film set in Notting Hill, London, released on 21 May 1999. The screenplay was by Richard Curtis, who had written Four Weddings and a Funeral. It was produced by Duncan Kenworthy and directed by Roger Michell...

, Julia Roberts

Julia Roberts

Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the romantic comedy Pretty Woman , which grossed $464 million worldwide...

' character Anna Scott sees a print of La Mariée in the home of Hugh Grant

Hugh Grant

Hugh John Mungo Grant is an English actor and film producer. He has received a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA, and an Honorary César. His films have earned more than $2.4 billion from 25 theatrical releases worldwide. Grant achieved international stardom after appearing in Richard Curtis's...

's character, William Thacker. Anna later gives William what is presumably the original. According to director Roger Michell

Roger Michell

Roger Michell is an English theatre, television and film director.-Personal life:He was born in Pretoria, South Africa but spent significant parts of his childhood in Beirut, Damascus and Prague as his father was a diplomat. He was educated at Clifton College where he became a member of Brown's...

 in an article in Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly

Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...

, the painting was chosen because screenwriter Richard Curtis

Richard Curtis

Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis, CBE is a New Zealand-born British screenwriter, music producer, actor and film director, known primarily for romantic comedy films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary, Notting Hill, Love Actually and The Girl in the Café, as well as the hit...

 was a fan of Chagall's work, and because La Mariée "depicts a yearning for something that's lost." Producers had a reproduction made for use in the film, but had to first get permission from the painting's owners (it is in a private collection in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

) as well as clearance from the British Design and Artists Copyright Society

Design and Artists Copyright Society

The Design and Artists Copyright Society is a UK not-for-profit rights management organisation that exists to collect and distribute royalties to visual artists....

. Finally, according to producer Duncan Kenworthy

Duncan Kenworthy

Duncan H. Kenworthy, OBE is a British film and television producer, and co-founder of the production company DNA Films. He is currently a producer at Toledo Productions....

, "...we had to agree to destroy it. They were concerned that if our fake was too good, it might float around the market and create problems." The article also notes that "...some experts say the real canvas could be worth between $500,000 and $1 million."