“Polichinelle with a Book” Lithograph

Note: Label on Backside: Marble Arch Gallery 135 E. 79th St. NY 21, Yukon 801890 “Harlequin” Litho.

Polichinelle au Livre, 1930
(Polichinelle with a book)

Image dimensions are: 14.50″ height x 8.38″ width, sheet size: 18″ x 12 5/8″

Catalogue reference: Meloni 59

Pochoir in colors and with gold leaf on Lafuma paper. Signed “G.Severini” in the plate, lower right, also stamped “Gino Severini” in the lower right margin.
An impression of the definitive state from the edition of 125. Published by Etchells & MacDonald, London, 1930. Plate 2 of 16 from the album: Fleurs et Masques.

FYI:
Pochoir (French: “stencil”), as distinguished from ordinary stenciling, is a highly refined technique of making fine limited editions of stencil prints. It is often called hand coloring, or hand illustration.

One of the most remarkable pochoir books. A superb depiction of Cubist still lives, harlequins musicians, and the masks and theatrics of the Commedia dell’Arte.

“”Despite abandoning cubism in his paintings in the early 1920s, Severini continued to use cubist elements in his decorative and graphic illustrations. The topics typical of Severini’s 1920s neo-cubist style – the still life with musical instruments, fruit, masks, and family – became the index for Fleurs et Masques.

The Fleurs et Masques pochoirs are whimsical (almost resembling playing cards) but at the same time sacred and profane. Throughout, Christian iconography is evident: the mother and child reminiscent of Mary and Jesus; ‘Ichthus’ fish and pigeons substituted for doves, perhaps, and grapes representative of an evangelical banquet.

Gino Severini was an Italian painter, graphic artist, sculptor and writer born in Cortona on the 7th April 1883. In 1899 Severini attended evening classes at the Villa Medici, Rome, and on meeting Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni in 1901, he began working as an artist. He moved to Paris in 1906, where he studied the Impressionists and encountered various well-known poets and philosophers. He signed the Manifesto of Futurist Painting in 1910, thus becoming a co-founder of Futurism. His work became Cubist after 1915 and focused on the harmony of geometric constructions. His favorite subjects were still lifes with musical instruments and scenes from the Commedia dell’ Arte. Between 1924 and 1935 Severini was commissioned with numerous murals and mosaics and published theoretical texts and books on art. He was awarded the Grand Prize of the Biennale in Venice in 1950. He died in Paris on the 26th February 1966.”” (Charlotte Hodgson, Victor Batte-Lay Trust).