L'Inconnue

This color lithograph entitled L'Inconnue d'Antoine Calbet was published in September 1897 in the fifth issue of the artistic monthly L'Estampe moderne .

With its 24 issues published between May 1897 and April 1899, L'Estampe moderne aimed to make the art of printmaking accessible to everyone. Executed by the main artist-engravers of the time, the 100 published plates, lithographs for the vast majority, were original and unpublished creations. They were accompanied by a serpente, indicating the name of the author and the title of the work with sometimes an extract from a poem or literary text in relation.

In the case of this lithograph, the text of the serpente reproduces an extract from the poem L'Homme et la mermaid by Henri de Régnier (1864-1936), taken from his collection Aréthuse (1895). Antoine Calbet illustrates in a very personal style, in the guise of a nymph crowned with flowers, the poetic vision of a mermaid "standing near the sea, and pure as if she were born, slender of some conch shell or white of foam, sand from the shore or salt from the sea! ".

Dry stamp of L'Estampe moderne lower right in the margin