Henry de Groux (1866-1930) - Lot 145

Henry de Groux (1866-1930) Christ aux outrages. 1926. Etching. 795 x 640. Fine proof on thin buff wove paper, extensively enhanced with gouache and gold and silver glitter ink, titled in brown pencil, then signed and dated in red pencil (signature faded). Marked oxidation around the subject. Several tears at the edges of the sheet, some penetrating into the subject, consolidated on verso. A small vertical fracture in the subject, consolidated on verso. Full margins. This etching is derived from the eponymous 1888-1889 painting in the Musée Calvet, Avignon, which brought the artist sudden fame in Paris and Brussels. The artist later produced other versions, one of which, undated, is in the Musée d'Orsay and another, dated 1925, is in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels. "This is unquestionably an important milestone in pictorial symbolism, as evidenced by a critical fortune without many equivalents at the time." (R. Rapetti, "Un chef-d'œuvre pour ces temps d'incertitude: Le Christ aux outrages d'Henry de Groux", in La Revue de l'Art, 1992, no. 96, p. 40). The painting inspired Ensor to create his Man of Sorrows. The engraving, illuminated in the manner of medieval imagery, is a faithful rendering of the painted versions and, like the canvases, evokes Rubens, Delacroix and Flemish masters such as Bosch and Bruegel, while at the same time unfolding a rich imagination worthy of the Surrealists. "... the work was immediately perceived as responding to the profound preoccupations of the time, to the extent that the most significant critics consider de Groux a brilliant artist. Perhaps this absence of constitutive method, this attitude as if away from catalogued forms, combined with an expressive impact that challenged pictorial rhetoric, embodied, all together, the hesitations of a period of stylistic conflict and the scope of his vast aspirations: those of a symbolist painting to which no evocation was forbidden. Camille Mauclair summed up the situation of Christ aux outrages in his time in one sentence: 'A masterpiece for these uncertain times'". (R. Rapetti, op. cit., p. 48).