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Welcome to Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.

120 Main Street, Upton MA 01568-6193

For more information or to purchase, please call 1-800-809-3343 or email us at spaightwood@gmail.com

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Last modified 7-10--15
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Georges Rouault (French, 1871-1958) Original Mixed Media Intaglios: Miserere IV

Gauguin / Camoin / Derain / Matisse / Rouault / Vlaminck

Rouault 1: Miserere / Rouault 2: Miserere 2 / Rouault 3: Miserere 3 / Rouault 4: Miserere 4
Rouault 5: Passion, Fleurs de Mal / Rouault 6: Pere Ubu / Rouault 7: Original Lithographs /Rouault Wood-engravings

For an introduction to Rouault in general and the Miserere in particular, please click here.

"The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters": Goya’s Caprichos etchings (1799), Durer's Ship of Fools woodcuts (1494), David Deuchar’s etchings (1786) after Hans Holbein’s Dance of Death, John Martin’s Paradise Lost mezzotints (1823-25), and Georges Rouault’s Miserere mixed-media intaglios (1922-1928)
Plate 49: Plus le coueur est noble, moins le coil est roide / The Nobler the heart, the less stiff the collar (C&R. 102c) Original aquatint, drypoint, burnisher, roulette, 1926. 450 impressions for the Miserere, Rouault's masterpiece and one of the most important series of the twentieth century. Signed and dated in the plate at bottom left (there are no pencil-signed proofs). The work depicts a general with a very stiff collar that prevents hiim from ever looking down to see his soldiers. Image size: 655x505mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Plate 50: Des Ongles et des Becs / Tooth and Nail (C&R. 103b) Original aquatint, drypoint, burnisher, roulette, 1926. 450 impressions for the Miserere, Rouault's masterpiece and one of the most important series of the twentieth century. Signed in the plate at left (there are no pencil-signed proofs). The work depicts a society woman ready to go out and fight the enemy "tooth and nail" in her armor of low-cut gown and jeweled necklace. This impression has just undergone conservation and is in excellent conditon. Image size: 581x447mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Plate 52: Lex dura sed lex / The law is hard, but it is the law (C & R 105e). Original aquatint, drypoint, burnisher, and roulette, 1926. 450 impressions signed and dated 1926 twice and signed with the initials bottom and bottom right (there are no pencil-signed proofs) for the Miserere, one of the greatest print cycles of all time. Rouault here is reversing the legl maxim, "Dura lex, sed lex" to emphasize the hardness not the "lawness" of life. According to St. Paul, the law brings death, but mercy gives life. Image size: 570x430mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Plate 53: Vierge aux sept glaives / The Virgin pierced by seven swords (C&R. 106c) Original aquatint, drypoint, burnisher, roulette, 1926. 450 impressions for the Miserere, Rouault's masterpiece and one of the most important series of the twentieth century. Signed in the plate at lower center right (there are no pencil-signed proofs). This impression has just undergone conservation and is in excellent conditon. Illustrated Musée National d'Art Moderne, 1971. Image size: 578x408mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Plate 54: Debouts les morts / Up and at them, dead guys (C&R. 107b). Original aquatint, drypoint, burnisher, roulette, 1927. 450 impressions for the Miserere, Rouault's masterpiece and one of the most important series of the twentieth century. There are no pencil-signed proofs. Supposedly, these are the words of a French sergeant to his men during the battle of Verdun (1916), reminding them that no one gets to live forever. Image size: 585x433mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Plate 56: En ces temps noirs de jactance et d'incroyance, Notre Dame de la Fin des Terres Vigilante / In these dark times of vainglory and unbelief, Our Lady of the Ends of the Earth keeps watch (C&R. 109c). Original aquatint, drypoint, burnisher, roulette, scraper, 1927. 450 impressions for the Miserere, Rouault's masterpiece and one of the most important series of the twentieth century. Signed in the plate and dated 1927 at lower center left (there are no pencil-signed proofs). A beautiful impression of this climactic image. Image size: 585x433mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Plate 57: Obéissant jusqu'à la mort et à la mort de la croix / Obedient unto the death, even death on the cross [St. Paul, Phillippians 2: 8] (C&R. 110b). Original aquatint, drypoint, burnisher, roulette, scraper, 1926. 450 impressions for the Miserere, Rouault's masterpiece and one of the most important series of the twentieth century. Signed in the plate at lower center left (there are no pencil-signed proofs). This impression has just undergone conservation and is in excellent condition. Image size: 655x505mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Plate 58: C'est par ses meurtrissures que nous sommes guéris / It is through his wounds that we are healed (C&R. 111b). Original aquatint, burnisher, and roulette, 1922. 450 impressions for the Miserere, Rouault's masterpiece and one of the most important series of the twentieth century. Signed in the plate at lower right and dated 1922 (there are no pencil-signed proofs). Flora and Kang suggest the relevance of 1 Peter 2: 21-24: "For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed." The Miserere thus end almost where they began—with God's "loving-kindness" and mercy as the one thing that can sustain us in a world fouled by the folly and viciousness of mankind, and saved by the "immense mercy of God." The difference is that we have experienced for ourselves through Rouault's mixed-media intaglio prints this truth in our minds and hearts both. Image size: 580x470mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.

To purchase, call us at 1-800-809-3343 (1-508-529-2511 in Upton MA & vicinity) or send an email to spaightwood@gmail.com.
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For directions and visiting information, please call. We are, of course, always available over the web and by telephone (see above for contact information). Click the following for links to past shows and artists. For a visual tour of the gallery, please click here. For information about Andy Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner, please click here. For a list of special offers currently available, see Specials.

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Visiting hours: Saturday 10:00 am to 5:00 pm and Sunday noon to 6:00 pm and other times by arrangement.
Please call to confirm your visit. Browsers and guests are welcome.
Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Prints and Drawings: Prints by Pierre Bonnard, Georges Braque, Charles Camoin,
Mary Cassatt, Paul Cezanne, Henri Edmond Cross, Edgar Degas, Sonia Delaunay, Maurice Denis, André Derain,
Susanne Duchamp, Raoul Dufy, Jean-Louis Forain, Paul Gauguin, Marie Laurencin, Aristide Maillol, Edouard Manet,
Henri Matisse, Berthé Morisot, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Georges Rouault, Ker Xavier Roussel, Paul Signac,
Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Suzanne Valadon, Maurice de Vlaminck, James A. McNeill Whistler, and others.

Drawings by Albert Besnard, Andre Barbier, Henri Edmond Cross, Jean-Louis Forain, Eva Gonzales, Marie Laurencin,
Maximilien Luce, and Georges Rouault.

Hand-colored prints by Mary Cassatt, Marc Chagall, Sonja Delaunay, Joan Miró, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso.

For a review of the show that concludes, "Art exhibits in Madison rarely get this good," click review.