Alcaforado / Matisse. – Marianna Alcaforado. Lot n° 4

Alcaforado / Matisse. - Marianna Alcaforado. Lettres (portugaises). Paris, Tériade, 1946. 4°. 109 num. P., 7 ll., 105 illustrations by Henri Matisse in chalk lithograph. Loose sheets, chemise, opaque wrappers and original slipcase. Dutuit 15. Dutuit-Matisse 276-278. smoke 170. artist & the book 297. hommage à Teriade 124f. Monod 145. - One of 170 (total 270) num. Ex. on vélin d'Arches, printing note signed by H. Matisse. Containing: 15 full-page portraits on plates, 55 (5 full-page) illustrations and 35 initials in manganese, all reproduced in Dutuit, pp. 90-115, ibid. each page described. First book illustration by Matisse for the publisher Tériade (two years later came "Jazz"); the world-literary subject matter chosen by the artist: passionate letters of a nun to an unfaithful husband, first printed in 1669 with great success and then republished again and again, finally translated by Rilke. Rilke in a letter to Rodin, April 11, 1913: "I have begun to translate the Lettres de la Religieuse portugaise, which, though I know them so well, still surprise me by their strong beauty." The response to Matisse's illustrations praises above all the visualization of the conflicts in the heart and conscience of the letter-writer and the unity of text and image, which responds to the author's particular state of feeling, deepened atmospherically with ornamental flourishes: Pomegranate, peach, leaf and flower from southern regions. In the summer of 1945 Matisse had begun with the illustrations, the portraits were created within a short time, as far as is known Doucia R., a forty-year-old Russian woman, served as the model. In December 1945 Matisse informed the publisher of the imminent completion of the work. In fact, proofs were expected from the lithographer Mourlot as early as January. Tériade announced a proof copy ready for printing ("bon à tirer") for the beginning of May 1946. The colophon gives the date of the completed printing: 23. October 1946. - Copy in very good condition.