Redon, Odilon, and Gustave Flaubert | La Tentation De Saint Antoine

Redon, Odilon, and Gustave Flaubert

La Tentation de Saint-Antoine. Paris: Ambroise Vollard, 1932

Folio (445 x 334 mm). 22 hors-texte lithographed plates after Odilon Redon printed by Auguste Clot, the plates housed in a folder at rear, 15 in-text wood engravings after designs by Redon, complete with the three bifolia containing the table of illustrations and the colophon; the text clean and bright, minor rippling to the plates, the folder at rear with some creasing, wear, and tears along the folds but holding soundly. Loose sheets in a printed paper wrapper, as issued; short splits at top and bottom of the front joint, very light wear at spine and corners. Housed in a custom clamshell case of dark green morocco, red morocco central panels with decorative relief and blindstamping, the panels surrounded by a thin band of red velvet, spine title; spine faded to brown, spots of wear to the spine and the extremities, the velvet lightly rubbed in places, some pale staining in the panels.

A limited edition artist’s book, copy number 185 of 200 on vélin d’Arches, featuring Redon's otherworldly illustrations after Flaubert.

For this 1932 publication, Ambroise Vollard used Odilon Redon’s third series of lithographs illustrating Gustave Flaubert’s prose poem, La Tentation de Saint Antoine. Though the lithographs were executed in 1896, Vollard did not acquire the rights to them until 1902. The wood engraved illustrations, on the other hand, were designed by Redon around 1910.

Many of Odilon Redon’s dreamlike lithographs were based on literary subjects. He was most drawn to authors like Poe and Flaubert, whose unusual sensibilities were well-matched to his own.

REFERENCES

Chapon, Le Peintre et le Livre, p. 282 ; Victoria and Albert Museum, From Manet to Hockney, 13

PROVENANCE

Donald and Barbara Bady (laid in ex-libris)