The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 23, 2024

It Is a Skull Wreathed with Roses. It Dominates a Woman's Torso of Pearly Whiteness

It Is a Skull Wreathed with Roses. It Dominates a Woman's Torso of Pearly Whiteness

1888
(French, 1840–1916)
printer

Becquet

(French)
publisher

Edmond Deman

France, 19th century
lithograph
Image: 29.6 x 21.3 cm (11 5/8 x 8 3/8 in.)
Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland 1927.477.7
Catalogue raisonné: Mellerio 89
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

Publisher Edmond Deman commissioned this portfolio after he saw an 1886 exhibition of Redon's work in Brussels, Belgium.

Description

This portfolio is one of three made by Odilon Redon inspired by avant-garde writer Gustave Flaubert’s novel The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1874). Captivated by the book’s fantastical account of moralizing tests encountered by a hermit in the desert, Redon executed charcoal drawings and attempted to evoke that medium’s dense blackness in his lithographs. Based on the text’s darkly imaginative tone rather than its actual content, the works in this series present invented monsters and figures in otherworldly settings with jarring tonal variations. Although Redon felt that the prints effectively translated the surreal universe of his source material, they were largely misunderstood in his own time.
  • ?-1927
    (Maurice Le Garrec, Paris, sold to the Print Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH)
    1927
    The Print Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
    1927-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Collecting Dreams: Odilon Redon. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 19, 2021-January 23, 2022).
    Odilon Redon: Dream Creatures and Anemones. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 21-October 14, 1984).
    Charles Meryon, Odilon Redon, and Rodolphe Bresdin. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (October 1, 1978-April 1, 1979).
    The Milieu of Edvard Munch. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 5-June 5, 1977).
  • {{cite web|title=It Is a Skull Wreathed with Roses. It Dominates a Woman's Torso of Pearly Whiteness|url=false|author=Odilon Redon, Becquet, Edmond Deman|year=1888|access-date=23 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1927.477.7