Title Plate (1896): Art, History and Details

Title Plate (1896) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916); Auguste Clot (French, 1858–1936).

The work and its context

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

Odilon Redon was a voracious reader of contemporary literature, and such texts often influenced his art. This series was inspired by The Haunted and the Haunters, an 1859 novel by British writer Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Redon’s prints capture the book’s mysterious tone and emphasis on the supernatural through vague but evocative imagery that sometimes borders on abstraction. By this time a seasoned expert in lithography, the artist collaborated with master printer Auguste Clot. Their combined technical skills allowed for the rich tonal variation seen here, made by turning Redon’s lithographic crayon on its side, layering various marks, and even scratching directly into the surface of his stone.

Object facts

• Title: Title Plate
• Date: 1896
• Creator attribution: Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916); Auguste Clot (French, 1858–1936)
• Culture: France, late 19th Century
• Type: Print
• Technique: lithograph on wove paper
• Dimensions: Image: 44.9 x 31.9 cm (17 11/16 x 12 9/16 in.); Matted: 71 x 55.7 x 0.3 cm (27 15/16 x 21 15/16 x 1/8 in.)
• Collection: PR - Lithograph
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1966.413.1

A detail from the museum

One of Redon's greatest patrons, the occultist René Philipon, commissioned this portfolio as a supplement for his French translation of Bulwer-Lytton's The Haunted and the Haunters.

Collection credit

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Year in Review." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 54, no. 10 (1967): 302-46.

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.