Description
Daragnes Original Lithograph · Femme Window, Montmartre ·Stone Print Paris 1946. Montmartre ran on bodies. Daragnes drew those bodies. One of 250 sets that were issued; this impression from #163. Issued 'en feuilles' (loose sheets). Jean-Gabriel Daragnès (1886–1950) Original Color Lithograph — 1946. Jean-Gabriel Daragnès (1886–1950) Original Color Lithograph — 1946 Femme, 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: A woman seen through a window, one eye catching the light with something between madness and calculation — the window frame dividing her into fragments, the blue-black of the Montmartre night pressing in from all sides. Below the window, we must imagine a figure in the street, looking up. The transaction implicit, the negotiation in progress or concluded. The blue here is cold — this is the blue of three in the morning, of a window that has been lit all night. 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.