On the Pale Silver Sofa (1899): Art, History and Details

On the Pale Silver Sofa (1899) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Maurice Denis (French, 1870–1943).

The work and its context

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

Maurice Denis belonged to the Nabis, a group of artists who came together in 1889 to pursue a radical new style informed by subjective experience and emotion. This print is from a series in which Denis explored his devotion to his wife, Marthe, by depicting her in a variety of settings alongside titles drawn from his own journal. The vague but evocative images were meant to encourage the viewer to draw connections to the theme and meditate on its meaning.

Object facts

• Title: On the Pale Silver Sofa
• Date: 1899
• Creator attribution: Maurice Denis (French, 1870–1943)
• Type: Print
• Technique: color lithograph on wove paper
• Dimensions: Image: 40.3 x 28.6 cm (15 7/8 x 11 1/4 in.); Sheet: 53.1 x 40.3 cm (20 7/8 x 15 7/8 in.)
• Collection: PR - Lithograph
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 2021.170.11

A detail from the museum

Maurice Denis was a devout Catholic and often drew visual connections between his wife, Marthe, the subject of this print series, and the Virgin Mary.

Collection credit

Purchase from the Jane B. Tripp Charitable Lead Annuity Trust and partial gift of Stephen Dull

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cailler, Pierre. Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre gravé et lithographié de Maurice Denis. Geneve: Éditions Pierre Cailler, 1968.

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.