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Deux Femmes de Profil dans un Paysage
[Two Women in Profile in a Landscape]
Johnston n° 42
lithograph, circa 1883, a very fine impression of this rare print, the artist's only lithograph, with subtle and sweeping tonal values, printed in bistre, on cream wove paper,
with good though slightly irregular margins, a slight unobtrusive (2mm)
indentation in the upper right margin, hinged on a mount at the top of
the sheet (verso), overall in quite excellent condition
P. 192x162 mm; S. 335x205 mm.
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The two Breton women, barely
distinguishable, are huddled in their cloaks as they wend their way
across the barren Landes. The windswept landscape and the two
spare figures are caught up in an identical movement by the austere
graphic rhythm of the scene. There is almost a spectral quality
to the image. One woman seems to have clasped her head in her
hands; is she distraught, lamenting? The taller woman is bending
over her, hand raised, finger pointing; is she reproachful, admonishing?
The graphic handling is quite
synthetist in the rough-hewn purity of O'Conor's singular style, which
adds effectively to the troublesome and menacing nature of the
scene. Johnston (1999) insists on the print's symbolic import:
"deux
mystérieux personnages encapuchonnés marchent dans un paysage désolé,
courbés sous la force du vent. Leur posture est volontairement
reprise en écho dans la forme torturée de l’arbre derrière eux.
Le parallèle entre les personnages et l’arbre est à la fois symbole de
leur dépendance vis à vis de la nature et de la difficulté de vivre
face aux éléments sur la côte du Pouldu."
["two
mysterious hooded figures walk in a desolate landscape, bent under the
force of the wind. Their posture deliberately echoes the tortured
form of the tree behind them. The parallel between the figures
and the tree is both a symbol of their dependence on nature and the
difficulty of living in the face of the elements along the coast of Le
Pouldu.]
We have only seen three
impressions of this rare lithograph on auction in the past 20
years: Jean-Louis Picard, Paris (26 March, 1996), Sotheby's
London (9 May, 2007), and Whyte's, Dublin (4 March, 2013).
We have also been able to locate two impressions held in French public collections:
- Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; see http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb40562831j/PUBLIC
- Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes; see http://www.photo.rmn.fr/cf/htm/CPicZ.aspx?E=2C6NU0307B3V
