Obéissant Jusqu'à la Mort et à la Mort de la Croix. Obedient unto Death and Death upon the Cross. by Georges Rouault, 1871-1958

Georges Rouault, 1871-1958
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Obéissant Jusqu'à la Mort et à la Mort de la Croix. Obedient unto Death and Death upon the Cross.

Original etching with aquatint over heliogravure in black ink. 1922. Signed and dated 1926 in the plate lower left. From the only edition of 450 impressions printed at the studio of Jacquemin 1922-27. Intended for issue as no LV11 in the series: Miserere. Commissioned by Vollard, 1922. Editioned between 1922 and '27. Edition first issued 1948 by Editions de L'Etoile Filante, Paris.
Ref: Rouault no 110

Excellent rich impression. On pale cream laid Arches paper. Generally excellent condition; slightest traces of old time discolouration in the outer margins only. Full margins. Sheet: 25 1/2 x 19 3/8ins. Plate: 22 3/4 x 16 5/8ins (580x422mm)

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?Obéissant Jusqu? à la Mort...? Is one of the most powerful and most important compositions in Rouault?s series ?Miserere?. The treatment of the forms in terms of bold outline, with the intervening surfaces worked with a superb range of complex textures from which the light glows in varying tones, and the stark handling of the composition itself, with the dominating ?close-up? focus and the simplification of pictorial space, mark an emotional culminating point in the whole of Rouault?s oeuvre as a printmaker.

The ideas for the series of compositions which make up the Miserere series began to form in Rouault?s mind around 1914. By the end of the First War its horrors and traumas had made Rouault determined to draw a series of images which would express the conflict between the hope that his faith inspired and his all-consuming despair in the face of the degradations that were being forced on mankind. Work on the plates dominated much of Rouault?s life at the beginning of the 1920?s, as he strove to perfect images which he felt increasingly were a central statement of his beliefs, but which also became more and more of a mental and physical burden.

After a great struggle, and many reworkings of the plates, the Miserere series was completed between 1922 and 1927. Over these years editions of 500 impressions of each of the plates were printed by André Jacquemin in Paris, working closely with Rouault. However, although Vollard, the publisher, had at the time been most anxious for Rouault to finish the set he never in fact issued it. The editions were still held by him at his death, and it was not until 1948 that the series was released at Rouault?s request, in an edition of 425 (a number of impressions having been damaged during the Second War).