Description
Title on china paper, otherwise on fine wove paper, unframed
Published by Ambroise Vollard, Paris, 1899
Printed by Auguste Clot, Paris, in an edition of 100 copies
Frontispiece: ca. 58,5 cm x 45 cm
The French artist Maurice Denis (1870 - 1943) created his graphical
masterpiece in 1899; he worked on it a series of years, from 1892
until 1899. Amour was inspired by the love poems Denis wrote for
Marthe Meurier, his later wife. It is an ode to Marthe and love in all
its forms. The Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, wrote in 2022 on the
occasion of the exhibition „Amour“: „With their refined colours,
soft lines and detailed patterns, the prints are the crème de la crème
of avant -garde lithography“. Cathy Leahy, senior curator of National
Gallery of Victoria: „The Amour suite is acclaimed as one of the
greatest achievements of the revival of colour lithography in Paris
in the 1890s“.
Marks
All 13 lithographs are signed in pencil „Maurice Denis“
Provenance
Sims Reed Gallery, London
Public collections
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; National
Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Literature
Pierre Cailler, catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre gravé et
lithographié de Maurice Denis, 2000, No. 107 - 119, pag. 103 - 115