Engraving of The Mount of Sainte Victoire by Jacques Villon after Cézanne

An interpretative engraving produced in 1920 by Jacques Villon, Marcel Duchamp's elder brother and grandson of the painter and engraver Émile Frédéric Nicolle, this print is highly complex: in all, it took over two months to print, including the study of the fifteen colours of ink that make up its four...

An interpretative engraving produced in 1920 by Jacques Villon, Marcel Duchamp's elder brother and grandson of the painter and engraver Émile Frédéric Nicolle, this print is highly complex: in all, it took over two months to print, including the study of the fifteen colours of ink that make up its four plates.
The original painting, kept at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, is one of several versions of Mont Sainte-Victoire painted by Cézanne. A hymn to nature, the artist only included a human presence in the representation of the viaduct supporting a railway and houses. In his painting, he plays on strong groups of tones and brings out the relief of the landscape through the branches in the foreground. In his interpretation, Villon merely suggests these motifs, thus sidestepping the human presence and leaving even more room for nature.
La Montagne Sainte-Victoire (1929), after Cézanne (1832-1883), is part of the 'Maîtres d'art élèves' scheme run by the Institut pour les savoir-faire français, which in 2022 recognised the pairing of Bertrand Dupré, an intaglio printer and engraver, and Lucile Vanstaevel, his student.

Numbered prints on 20 copies, dated 2025, unsigned. Aquatint in four colours, point, roulette.