Max Slevogt
Goethes Faust. Zweiter Teil
1926/1927
Portfolio with 430 lithographs on China paper and 11 etchings on laid paper in four supplies, in original pigskin leather slipcase with gold embossing. Each 45.8 x 35.6 cm (49.5 x 38.4 x 9.5 cm, slipcase). Each sheet signed 'Slevogt', numbered '20' in the editor's note. No. 20/50. Published by Bruno Cassirer, Berlin 1926-1927. - Slight marginal defects on some sheets, overall in very fine condition.
In 1926/27, Max Slevogt took stock of his entire graphic oeuvre in his most extensive and at the same time most important illustration cycle "Faust II" with well over 400 lithographs and 11 etchings, thus creating one of the greatest illustration series of modernism. Inspired by the drawing style of Eugène Delacroix, he combined the various lithographic techniques with etching for the first time, merging them into a single unit. In addition to the text version by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the literary model for the drawings were also the stage interpretations that Slevogt had seen as an enthusiastic theatre-goer. During the intensive period in which the series was created, Slevogt had identified with the main character of Faust to such an extent that he sometimes bears his features.
Catalogue Raisonné
Rümann 25b; Söhn 815 (1-439)
Provenance
Private collection, Hesse
Literature
Hans Jürgen Imiela, Max Slevogt. Eine Monographie, Karlsruhe 1968, S. 238-243; Nobert Suhr, Max Slevogt als Graphiker, in: Ausst. Kat. Saarbrücken/Mainz 1992, S. 89-90; Bernhard Geil, Die Faust II-Illustrationen von Max Slevogt, Landau 2001; Bernhard Geil, Max Slevogts graphisches Schaffen der Berliner Jahre, in: Exhib. cat. Wuppertal/Berlin 2005, p. 179; Mona Stocker, "Ein Unikum in unserer Kunstgeschichte" - Das 'Französische' an Max Slevogts Papierarbeiten, in: Exhib. cat. Saarbrücken 2018/19, p. 141-142
Exhibitions
Cf. Max Slevogt. Gemälde, Aquarelle, Zeichnungen, exhib. cat. Saarbrücken/Mainz 1992, cat. no. 361-363