The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of November 28, 2023

Fairy of the Alps

c. 1885

Henri Fantin-Latour

(French, 1836–1904)

France

Charcoal with white chalk and black chalk, with framing lines in black crayon and squaring marks in graphite, on laid paper discolored to tan

Sheet: 62.5 x 46.7 cm (24 5/8 x 18 3/8 in.)

Mr. and Mrs. Richard W. Whitehill Art Purchase Endowment Fund 2019.225

Catalogue raisonné: Dubourg 1242

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

This drawing relates to a print of the same year. Fantin used this sheet to work out his composition before completing a drawing on tracing paper, which was then used to transfer the image to a lithographic stone.

Description

Henri Fantin-Latour’s drawings featured imaginative compositions, often inspired by the music of contemporary German composers. This sheet relates to the symphonic work Manfred by Robert Schumann (1848), a drama in which Manfred encounters apparitions while mourning his lost lover. Fantin used layers of dark charcoal to evoke the emotional tenor of his subject and to translate the experience of listening to Schumann’s music using a visual medium.

Inscriptions

Inscription

signed, upper right, in charcoal: Fantin

Henri Fantin-Latour

French painter and printmaker, 1836-1904
Provenance
by 1901-1937
Madame Albert Esnault-Pelterie, Paris
1937
(her sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, November 4, 1937, no. 11)
2017
(sale, De Baecque et Associés, Paris, June 19, 2017, no. 230)
2017-2019
(Jill Newhouse, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)
2019-
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Citations
Hédiard, Germain. "Les Dessins de Fantin-Latour." Unpublished manuscript, 1901. Bibliothèque Nationale de France (YB3-2752-4). Mentioned: nos. 77 (dessins encadrés) and 12 (exposition chez M. Tempelaere)
Dubourg, Victoria. Catalogue de l’œuvre complet (1849–1904) de Fantin-Latour. Paris: Floury, 1911. Mentioned: p. 129, no. 1242
Tableaux modernes et du XIXe siècle [. . .] appartenant à M. X [. . .]. Paris: Hôtel Drouot, 1937. Mentioned: p. 4, no. 11
Exhibition history

Exposition de dessins de Fantin-Latour. Galerie Tempelaere, Paris (December 2–21, 1901).

Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 20-April 30, 2023).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2019.225