Beschreibung
Aquatint with scraper on copper, inscribed in drypoint 17.5.68. I (only plate made May 17, 1968). Image 29.5 x 34.6 cm, 11-3/4 x13-1/2 in., sheet 49.7 x 58.4 cm, full margins. One of 5 proofs printed by Crommelynck on BFK Rives wove before the steel-facing of the plate. (The edition published in 1969 by Galerie Louise Leiris from the steel-faced plate was 50 numbered impressions plus 17 unnumbered artist's proofs.) Inscribed "épreuve avant aciérage" in pencil and with the atelier signature stamp in black ink, margin recto left and right just below image. Provenance: Succession Picasso and Marina Picasso, with the violet ink stamp (Lugt 3698) and the Picasso Archive inventory number "28780" in pencil, verso; acquired by Leslie Sacks Fine Art, Santa Monica, by 2011. Archivally mounted in a cream wove framing mat 22-3/4 x 24 in., in a dovetailed polished maple frame 23-3/8 x 24-5/8 x 1-1/2 in. (UF-5 Plexiglas glazing). A brilliant impression with delicate modulation and sharply differentiated tones, in superb condition apart from negligible light-striking, visible mostly verso only in strong lighting and hardly any distraction. Bloch 1578; Baer 1594. This plate is one of a large group in the Série 347 inspired by the Comedia de Calisto y Melibea (La Celestina) (1499-1500) of Fernando de Rojas. 66 plates of the group were subsequently used in an edition of 400 copies published in 1971: La Célestine (Éditions Crommelynck) (Orozco 248). The present plate, Bloch 1578, is not part of the book edition but is sandwiched between the blocks Bloch 1573-76 and Bloch 1581-83, which are. Thus, the total number of impressions from the present plate after the 5 initial proofs is 67 rather than 467. This sheet was one of 73 impressions from all the Série 347 plates before steel-facing that bear the atelier signature stamp, "munie par erreur" according to Baer. The only one among the 5 proofs from this plate before steel-facing that bears the stamped signature, this example was included in one of two suites of Série 347 circulated in early exhibitions . By 2011 Leslie Sacks acquired as a block, possibly through Galerie Jan Krugier, New York, as agent, the entirety of these stamped proofs then remaining available. A comparison of the present impression, before the steel-facing filled in the aquatint, with impressions from the numbered edition of 50 (e.g., Metropolitan Museum of Art 1985.1165.22) or even from the 17 artist's proofs (e.g., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2001.142) shows the distinct superiority of the modulation and crisp delineation of tone in this proof. The title may be a clumsy invention of Galerie Louise Leiris rather than Picasso, who generally eschewed titles. The key concept, Rapt, abduction, permeates Picasso's oeuvre, notably the Sabines series starting with the oil on canvas 24.10.62, which evolved into a full-throated quotation of Guernica during the Cuban missle crisis that year. The present sheet is from a block of four, not in La Célestine, executed May 16, 17, 18, 1968, plates 97 through 100 of Série 347, narrating an autobiography in miniature. The cast is introduced in plate 97, the lovers at left amid female faces, some unmistakably Jacqueline, a garlanded hero-youth and lesser ruffian in center and an artist-figure holding a sheaf of paper at right. In plate 98 the abduction is incipient, the figure on rearing horse about to lead his two staved henchmen in the pursuit of Celestina and the half-naked woman in plate 99. The denouement of plate 100 shows a woman now nude from waist down, her hand on a cupid, the only dynamic figures in the design. At right the lover-figure stands stiff and static. At left a figure akin to Crommelynck observes, flanking the two staved men now at rest. The story of plates 97 through 100 does not correspond to anything in Rojas's proto-picaro but embraces Picasso's reminiscing paean for old vitality that is Série 347. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers ABE-1726169122703
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