Couple au Bord du Torrent
Andre Derain (1880-1954), Couple au Bord du Torrent, drypoint, c. 1912-14, signed in pencil lower right margin and numbered 36 lower left. Reference: Adhemar 41, from an edition estimated at 50, in very good condition, the full sheet, printed on an ivory wove paper, 4 5/8 x 4 1/4, the sheet 12 3/4 x 9 3/4 inches, archival mounting with window mat.
A fine impression printed with plate tone.
It appears that this plate was owned by Derain’s eminent dealer Daniel Henry Kahnweiler, and was editioned and exhibited by Kahnweiler’s partner Simon at the Galerie Flechtheim in Dusseldorf in 1920.
Couple au Bord du Torrent was most likely created after Derain’s proto-cubist period (after 1907). but before his period of creating fully formed classical nudes during the 1920’s. It may be related to the several paintings he did during this wartime period, which showed rather mannerist nudes based on archaic or classical models such those on Grecian urns with a rather sparse somewhat artificial background.
Jane Lee, in her article The Prints of Andre Derain (The Print Quarterly, March, 1990, p. 45) dates Couple au Bord du Torrent as made during the War, a time when Derain was experimenting with various idioms in his work with nudes.
$1400