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| Artist: Alphonse Mucha
Czech (1860-1939) | | Item: em08 |
| Title: Salome | | Description:
Cond. A+, Original Lithograph,
issued
by L'Estampe Modern, June 1897, Printed by F. Champenois, Paris.
Blindstamp
lower right in margin.
Presented in 16
x 20 in. acid free, archival museum mat, with framing labels. Ready to frame.
Shipped boxed flat via Fedex.
Certificate of Authenticity.
See our
Terms of Sale
Also Includes:
Original tissue overlay
with text.
|
| Sheet Size: | 12 in x 15 3/4 in |
| | 31 cm x 40 cm | |
Price: temporarily out of
stock
(Like many of my most sought after images I am usually able to
locate this for clients. email me for a price estimate, Greg)
To Request |
|
A symbol of the erotic and dangerous woman, the femme fatale.
"Mucha created expressly for the L'Estampe Moderne, a monthly
portfolio of four lithographs issued between 1897 and 1899. His rendering of Salome
presents the legendary temptress as a Byzantine gypsy-diaphanous apparel, raven
tresses hung with rings, plucking an ancient stringed instrument, no doubt to
accompany herself in the Dance of the Seven Veils." (Rennert
PAI)
Not unlike the Maitre de L'Affiche series, L'Estampe Modern
was a portfolio printed between 1897-98, published by Imprimerie Champenois, Paris,
contained 24 monthly portfolios, with four original lithographs in each. Each
commissioned only for this series. As well as Mucha, some of the contributing
artists included Rhead, Meunier, Ibels, Steinlen, Willette and Grasset. This is
from the series with the blindstamp in the margin lower right corner.
"In Christian mythology, Salome was the daughter of Herodias and stepdaughter
of Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee in Palestine. Her infamy comes from causing
St. John the Baptist's execution. The saint had condemned the marriage of Herodias
and Herod Antipas, as Herodias was the divorced wife of Antipas's half brother
Philip. Incensed, Herod imprisoned John, but feared to have the well-known prophet
killed. Herodias, however, was not mollified by John's incarceration and pressed
her daughter Salome to "seduce" her stepfather Herod with a dance, making him
promise to give her whatever she wished. At her mother's behest, Salome thus asked
for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Unwillingly, Herod did her bidding,
and Salome brought the platter to her mother.
Oscar Wilde wrote his one-act
play Salomé, originally written in French, to shock audiences with its spectacle
of perverse passions.
Wilde's play became the source and inspiration
for Richard Strauss's one-act opera also named Salomé, first produced in 1905.
Herod's lust for Salome is emphasized, which Salome uses to gain her wishes by
performing the famous "Dance of the Seven Veils." Salome, in turn, desires to
have John the Baptist -- a new interpretation of the original myth. In the end,
the only way Salome may have any part of John, quite literally, meant that she
must demand his head be given to her. Salome fulfills her passion by kissing the
dead lips of John's decapitated head, who had previously rejected her. This new
and more familiar version of Salome depicts her as a seductress of her stepfather
and a murderer of a saint, thereby becoming a symbol of the erotic and dangerous
woman, the femme fatale." (Victorianweb.com)
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