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Les Bateaux
[The Boats]
Kornfeld & Wick 13
four-color lithograph,
1895, on fine wove paper,
a
very fine impression, most probably the 3rd state (of
three), unsigned, with full margins, very slightly yellowed along
margins from an old mount, a filiform imperfection in the paper lower
right, a short diagonal handling crease lower right, traces of hinges above (verso), otherwise in quite excellent condition
L. 235x398 mm. S. 410x530 mm.
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Provenance: a private
Parisian collection
This was
Signac's last lithograph for the publisher Gustave Pellet, and we know that he worked
diligently on the final version. There is the Bon ŕ tirer impression in collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which is richly annotated by the artist in view of the edition:
see https://www.mfa.org/collections/object/boats-45913
There are
subtle differences in the colors of the impressions from the edition,
and ours tends more to refined atmospheric pastels.*
Kornfeld & Wick note
too that the
edition was not systematically signed and/or numbered (the size of this edition was 40 impresions).
This print was
in any case a misty-bright morning tribute by Signac to the majestic
clipper ships,
with two of the boats under full sail; the age of the clipper ships,
which reached its height in the 1850s, was already in decline thirty
years later...
Paul Signac was an ardent
and tireless sailor, from Saint Tropez to the North Sea, and
seascapes make up a
major part of his œuvre. There was an important exhibition
focussing on this aspect of Signac's art, held at Giverny in
2013, Signac : les Couleurs de
l'Eau (see
http://www.mdig.fr/sites/default/files/pdf/dossier_pedagogique_signac.pdf)
* Cf for example the
impression in the Kornfeld & Wick catalogue raisonné or the
impression sold at Christie's in October 2018:
https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/paul-signac-1863-1935-les-bateaux-6165989-details.aspx
Our impression appears to chromatically conform closer to the "Bon ŕ tirer" impression in the MFA, Boston.
