In ‘Le Traineau’, Chagall depicts a couple under a Chuppah in celebration of romance, tradition, and Jewish culture. Marriage was a favourite theme for Chagall, with the artist seemingly taken by portraying the symbolic and ethereal bonding of two people in matrimony. This joyous painting is an ode to love and commitment.

There is an element of the autobiographical in ‘Le Traineau’, with parts of the artist’s past and present appearing within the work. The subject matter of the marriage is likely a reflection of Chagall’s two marriages, first to Bela who tragically died in 1944 and to his second wife Vava, whom he wed in 1952, the period in which he created ‘Le Traineau’.

The village in which the couple stand is filled with the nostalgia for the artist’s upbringing in the Belarusian village of Vitebsk. The buildings are in the style of artist’s hometown, rather than the French village of Vence where Chagall was living at the time. As exemplified in ‘Le Traineau’, Chagall’s unique style is seeped in memories and references to folkart, here presented in the violinist on the sleigh and floating figures. The motif of a sleigh being pulled by an animal recurs in a number of Chagall’s works from this period, including ‘Madonna with the Sleigh’ (1947) which is now in the collection of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.