Daragnes Original Lithograph · La Boxe Boxer Montmartre ·Stone Print Paris 1946
$ 63.36
Description
Daragnes Original Lithograph · La Boxe Boxer Montmartre ·Stone Print Paris 1946. Montmartre ran on bodies. Daragnes drew those bodies. La Boxe, Montmartre Paris. One of 250 sets that were issued; this impression from #163. Issued 'en feuilles' (loose sheets). The Image: Between rounds — the fighter slumped across his corner stool, upper body against the ropes, a trainer working urgently at his feet while a second man leans through from outside, words going into an ear that may not be receiving them. Jean-Gabriel Daragnès (1886–1950) Original Color Lithograph — 1946 La Boxe, Montmartre Paris Medium: Original lithograph pulled from stone, showing a scene of Montmartre's demimonde. One of 250 sets that were issued; this impression from #163. Issued 'en feuilles' (loose sheets). The Image: Between rounds — the fighter slumped across his corner stool, upper body against the ropes, a trainer working urgently at his feet while a second man leans through from outside, words going into an ear that may not be receiving them. The KOLA sign blazes above it all, indifferent. Daragnès finds Carco's Montmartre not in the fight itself but in the corner, where the glamour runs out completely. It's an image of effort and exhaustion rather than violence. The fight is offstage. What Daragnès chose to show is the human machinery required to send a man back into it. Montmartre ran on bodies. Daragnes drew those bodies. The boxer sold punishment and endurance, the tightrope walker sold the possibility of falling, the bareback rider sold the illusion of control over something that could kill her, the brothel worker in the window sold herself. Different transactions, same currency — the physical self, offered nightly to whoever was buying, in a quarter where the streets were witnesses to this market for centuries without apology or sentiment. Daragnès lived there. He drew what he saw without flinching and without romanticizing — the empty torero suit awaiting its man, the canal at the end of the night when there is nowhere left to go. André Clot pulled it all from stone, finishing the lithographs on All Saints' Day 1946, the feast of the dead, which was either coincidence or exactly right. Year: 1946 (printed on All Saints’ Day / La Toussaint) Sheet Size: Approx. 9.5 × 11 in (24 × 28.5 cm); full sheet with margins as issued Paper: Premium Vélin de Lana Photos of the edition number and colophon are for informational purposes and are not included in the sale. Ships flat in rigid mailer and archival sleeve between rigid stiffeners.
