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Alphonse Mucha Pair of "Byzantine Heads" Lithographs
$47,500
A pair of French "Byzantine Heads" lithographs by Alphonse Mucha. The mastery evident in creating two archetypes of the female form against a decorative background confirms Mucha's artistic maturity. Both women, portrayed in profile, have their heads decorated with delicately rendered but majestically scaled jewelry, the richness and oriental nature of which suggested the name Byzantine Heads for the series. In this version, the rarest of all variants, Mucha adds corners filigreed with curves to the original circular designs in order to create the standard rectangular shape of decorative panels. Sold exclusively as matching set.
- Product Details
- Curator's Notes
Item #: YML-20369
Artist: Alphonse Mucha
Circa: 1897
Size: 21" height, 15" width, Framed: 29" height, 22.5" width
Materials: Lithograph
Literature: Pictured in Alphonse Mucha, The Complete Posters and Panels by Jack Rennert and Alain Weill, page 167, cat. 40, variant 1
The subtle differences in details between the images are worth noticing. This is the first appearance of the perfect form of Mucha's often-used motif, a circle framing each head interrupted by a strand of hair. With this device, it is as if Mucha's unreachable beauties have broken the magic border between themselves and their admirers and suggest the possibility that they might, perhaps, meet.