Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1917) - Lot 208

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1917) Venus. Circa 1888. Drypoint. 102x182mm. Delteil, Stella not described. Very fine proof on cream vellum, stamped (Lugt 2137a). Annotation in pencil in lower margin: "unknown to Delteil". Full margins. This subject, unknown to the catalog raisonné, is to be compared with Femme nue dénouant sa chevelure (Delteil, Stella 3), which similarly stands on the curve of a globe, and served as frontispiece to Pages de Mallarmé (Bruxelles, Edmond Deman, 1891). This is probably an unpublished variant. "It was at Mallarmé's request that he did his first etching, a Venus from the Ingresque period. It was intended for the Tiroir de laque, a collection of prose poems. We know from a letter from Mallarmé to Deman (the Brussels publisher) dated August 7, 1788 that "The illustrations? Everything is ready except the Degas...". [...] This clearly means that this Venus was already executed by this date (and not in 1891) and probably printed by Delâtre, as Mallarmé again implies." (Janine Bailly-Herzberg, Dictionnaire de l'Estampe en France 1830-1950, Paris, Arts et Métiers Graphiques, 1985, p.277).