The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of July 1, 2022

Bastille Day

1892

Maurice Prendergast

(American, 1858-1924)

America, 19th century

Color monotype

Support: Cream laid paper

Image: 17.4 x 13.1 cm (6 7/8 x 5 3/16 in.); Platemark: 25.5 x 20 cm (10 1/16 x 7 7/8 in.); Sheet: 30.5 x 24.8 cm (12 x 9 3/4 in.)

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland 1954.337

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

This print is one of the few works that can be dated to Maurice Prendergast's early years in Paris.

Description

Maurice Prendergast began to make monotypes in the early 1890s while living in Paris, where he was influenced by Edgar Degas's use of the technique. Prendergast focused on scenes from daily life, such as this depiction of crowds filling the streets of the French capital on the country's national holiday. He used layers of blue and black ink to evoke the shadowy tones of nighttime and orbs of bright pink to suggest the artificial light of lanterns illuminating the boulevards.

Inscriptions

Inscription

inscribed, at bottom in image: Le Quatorze Juillet 1892; initialed, at lower right in image: MBP [in monogram]

Provenance
?-1954
(Peter H. Deitsch, New York, NY, sold to the Print Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH)
1954
Print Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
1954-
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history

What Was the Armory Show?. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (June 27-September 15, 1963).

The Painterly Print. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (May 1-June 29, 1980); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, MA (July 29-September 28, 1980).

Generous Donors: A Tribute to The Print Club of Cleveland. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 2-August 4, 1991).

Singular Impressions: The Monotype in America. National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC (April 4-August 3, 1997).

Treasures on Paper from the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (March 9-June 8, 2014).

Monotypes: Painterly Prints. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (May 31-October 11, 2015).

A Lasting Impression: Gifts of the Print Club of Cleveland. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 5-September 22, 2019).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1954.337