Painted in 1950.

La Garde des anges belongs to several works in Vieira da Silva’s oeuvre that incorporate spiritual symbolism. Though the artist has asserted that she was not religious, she painted a number of compositions that incorporate spiritual scenery, as is the case in the present work and La chapelle gothique, currently in the Kunstmuseum Basel Collection. These two works, painted only a year apart, balance muted swaths of steel blue, beige and grey with strongly placed horizontal and vertical beams of black. The blocks of color multiply outward from a central rectangle, opening up and growing exponentially larger on the left of the canvas. La Garde des anges has been included in several exhibitions at major international art institutions including the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam and the Museé National d'Art Moderne, Paris. The spiritual character in La Garde des anges represents a search for meaning in the aftermath of World War II.