Raphael Collin, Le Départ, 1899, Original Lithograph

Details

Description

Raphael Collin (1850 - 1916)

Le Départ
(The Departure)

Original Lithograph from the glorious portfolio "L'Estampe Moderne", issue #22 (February … Read more Raphael Collin (1850 - 1916)

Le Départ
(The Departure)

Original Lithograph from the glorious portfolio "L'Estampe Moderne", issue #22 (February 1899)

On wove paper

Year: 1899

Size (sheet): 405 x 305 mm
Size (image): 343 x 234 mm

Signed in the plate, bottom right

Blind stamp of the publisher, bottom right, out of the image

Excellent condition: minor signs of age
Great colours
Full margins (not cropped, not trimmed)

Same print in:
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, inventory: 2014.695.ll

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About the Collection (L'Estampe Moderne)

L'Estampe Moderne appeared in 1897-1899 as a series of 24 monthly fascicles, each containing 4 original lithographs, printed by Parisian Imprimerie Champenois. Many accomplished European Art Nouveau painters contributed works to this publication, which contained only Original prints invented and produced especially for this collection. The publication was edited by Charles Masson and H. Piazza. Each issue came in a paper cover bearing an original lithograph by Alphonse Mucha.
Each lithograph was accompanied by a tissue containing the details (title of the artwork, name of the artist, etc.) and a short text by a well-known author who inspired the artist (this one being by Francis Vielé-Griffin).
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About the artist

Louis-Joseph-Raphaël Collin (1850 – 1916) was a French painter born and raised in Paris, where he became a prominent academic painter and a teacher. He is principally known for the links he created between French and Japanese art, in both painting and ceramics.

Collin studied at the school of Saint-Louis, then went to Verdun where he was at school with Jules Bastien-Lepage; they became close friends. Collin then went to Paris and studied in the atelier of Bouguereau and then joined Lepage at Alexandre Cabanel's atelier where they both worked alongside Fernand Cormon, Aimé Morot and Benjamin Constant. Collin painted still-lives, nudes, portraits and genre pieces, and preferred to render his subjects en plein air with a clear and luminous palette.

Around 1873 he began successfully exhibiting at the Salon. He won a number of prizes that helped launch his career, and before long he was receiving increasingly prestigious commissions to paint large scale murals in major public buildings around Paris, including some of the most prominent cultural centers of Paris: the Hôtel de Ville, the Théatre de l'éon, and the Opéra-Comique.

Collin's early work closely followed the essential tenets of French academism. Like the Renaissance painters they admired, the nineteenth-century academicians used historical, religious, or allegorical painting to communicate an idea. Within the parameters of this literary art, Collin made subtle modifications to the accepted academic style, introducing elements of the impressionist technique into his allegorical scenes. Such formal techniques as formal composition and bright color evoked the light filled landscapes of impressionism rather than the dark chiaroscuro of Renaissance painting.

During the last few decades of the nineteenth century, academic painting in France was in crisis, eclipsed by the new artistic movements of impressionism and symbolism. Collin's friendship with members of the impressionists provided him with insights into the new direction contemporary painting was taking. He adapted his work accordingly and in such paintings as Young Woman, he found a compromise between the academic style and the new painterly innovations of the impressionists and the Nabis. Collin began to emphasise the picture surface by reducing the spatial depth of his paintings as well as composing with areas of concentrated color. Yet he never completely abandoned the hallmarks of academicism: allegory and naturalism.

Collin figured prominently in artistic exchanges between Paris and Tokyo during the late nineteenth century as Kuroda Seiki, Kume Keiichirō, and Okada Saburōsuke, among others, studied in his studio and at the Académie Colarossi, where Collin was associated. Kuroda and Kume, who subsequently assumed professorships at the Tokyo Fine Arts School (Tokyo Bijutsu Gakkō), were especially instrumental in introducing to Japan Collin's academic teaching methods as well as the lighter palette, brushwork, and plein air approach he espoused. This mentorship of the first generation of Japanese oil painters contributed to the special respect he continues to enjoy in Japan.

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from the text on the tissue paper, from Partenza (Departures) by Francis Vielé-Griffin:

D’autres viendront par la prée
S’asseoir au banc de la porte ;
Tu souriras belle et parée,
Du seuil, à ta jeune escorte :

Ils marcheront à ta suite
Aux rayons de ton printemps
― Qu’ont-ils à courir si vite ?
Moi, j’eus aussi, leurs vingt ans —

Ils auront tes sourires
Et ta jeunesse enchantée…
Qu’importe ? qu’en sauront-ils dire :
Moi seul, je t’aurai chantée.
\.
Tu n’as rien pris de mon âme
Que je ne te l’aie donné ;
Mon rêve est tendre et calme
De l’œuvre de ma journée ;

Je n’ai rien pris de ta lèvre
Qu’un baiser et qu’un refrain ;
Le soir vient, je me lève,
Et je reprends le chemin ;


Je te quitte, tu me laisses aller
― Toi, sans regrets, moi sans remords —
Aussi bien il le fallait
Selon la vie et le sort.

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Important:

. The listing is for the original print, in the above mentioned very good / excellent condition.
. The original tissue paper introduction has some folds and tears, especially along the margins, and it will be given as is to the buyer as a gift for confirming the authenticity.
. The cover by Mucha is shown as a reference This piece has an attribution mark,
I am sure that it is completely authentic and take full responsibility for any authenticity
issues arising from misattribution See less