Enlèvement des Sabines (1962)

Original lithograph on stone, on fine Vellum paper.

Printed by the Mourlot workshops.

Not signed.

Edition created in 1962.

Frame Colour: Brown

Estimated value: £700

On offer from Vache Bleue Galleries.

About the Medium:

Mourlot cultivated the lithograph as a painter’s medium. Initially limited to illustration, the lithograph was invented by Aloys Senefelder at the end of the 18^th century. Although immediately accepted in the highest critic’s circles, the medium did not flourish until its adaptation by Cheret, Lautrec, Bonnard, and Vuillard who found a unique form of expression in its’ modern technique and bold colors. Fernand Mourlot identified this niche and employed its evident popularity by inviting artists to work directly on the stone, as if creating a poster. 

In 1945, Pablo Picasso walked into the Mourlot studio. With his graphic genius and prodigious inventiveness, Picasso proceeded to lend a new dimension to the lithographic process as well as his own art. “He came like he was going to battle,” Mourlot remarked, a battle that would last four months and be repeated at different points during the next several years. A corner of the studio became Picasso’s private domain and there he created nearly four hundred lithographs between 1945 and 1969. Bolstered by the press-operators Tutins and Célestin, he worked mercilessly, inventing the most complex and extravagant techniques, the inherent difficulties of which were dissolved in the man’s customary brio.