Cupid, Death and the Beyond; plate XII from Intermezzi, Opus IV

 

Max Klinger

  1857 - 1920 (biography)

c. 1881  

etching and aquatint printed chine colle 

6 1/8 x 16 1/8" paper size, 7-7/8 x 16-3/4" platemark, support sheet 

unsigned as published 

not stated 

 

Singer 63 

china supported on antique-white wove paper 

published 

Theodor Stoefer, Nuremberg, 1881 

10208 

SOLD

In Klinger's “Cupid, Death, and the Beyond”, plate 12 from “Intermezzos - Opus IV” (Varnedoe/Streicher 15), we see what might be Klinger's most elegantly represented symbolist image. A skeletal Death sits on the back end of a fantastic contraption, resembling a coffin with wooden legs; he chases Cupid who navigates from a bicycle seat in front, bow in hand. What follows them is etched in a quieter, more faint line: A buffalo that appears to move on a myriad of feet - which are not feet at all, but human hands - carries a ghostly, feathered apparition draped in a sheet, through which we see human faces and limbs. The images might represent a disturbing concept of the Beyond, or simply a nightmare figure from Klinger's own imagination.