Beatrice (1897): Art, History and Details

Beatrice (1897) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916); Auguste Clot (French, 1858–1936); Ambroise Vollard (French, 1867–1939).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This print represents Odilon Redon’s fullest experimentation with color lithography. Although he occasionally printed works in a single color, he only made one work in a full range of tones. Revisiting the subject of a pastel from about a decade earlier, Beatrice portrays a recurring figure in Redon’s work—the woman who inspired Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321). Working with his frequent collaborators during the 1890s, printer Auguste Clot and publisher Ambroise Vollard, Redon used muted shades to suggest Beatrice’s ethereal presence and her timeless role as an artistic muse.

Object facts

• Title: Beatrice
• Date: 1897
• Creator attribution: Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916); Auguste Clot (French, 1858–1936); Ambroise Vollard (French, 1867–1939)
• Culture: France, late 19th Century
• Type: Print
• Technique: color lithograph on China paper laid on wove paper
• Dimensions: Image: 33.6 x 29.6 cm (13 1/4 x 11 5/8 in.)
• Collection: PR - Lithograph
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1931.50

A detail from the museum

This print was published in L'Album d'Estampes Originales, a portfolio of lithographs edited by Vollard that included works by some of the leading artists of the day including Bonnard, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Vuillard, and Whistler.

Collection credit

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland

Further reading listed by the museum

• Catalogue of an exhibition of the art of lithography: commemorating the sesquicentennial of its invention, 1798-1948. [Cleveland]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, November 11, 1948-January 2, 1949. Published as: Béatrice.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.