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Lot Essay
Le chevalier mystique is one of Redon's most important images of the 1890s and this drawing's inclusion in the criticaly acclaimed Institute of Chicago Redon exhibition further confirms its importance for Redon scholarship today.
'Redon's image of the forbidding, emblematic and hieratic Mystical Knight (the present work) earned him a place in the pantheon of occult Symbolism. Its spacial, inconographical, and psychological ambiguities inspired exalted spiritual interpretation in contemporary criticism. With his right hand, the armour-clad knight holds a severed head, perhaps that of a women, perhaps that of Saint John the Baptist, in which latter case the figure takes on the attributes of Salome, the Symbolist antisaint, who had the martyr beheaded. With his left hand, he points firmly and confidently. A sanctifying arch casts a halo around him. A coloumn springing from the parapet seems to dissolve into the arch, in turn becoming the wing of a crouching sphinx. The knight's imperious gesture is acknowledged by the sphinx, whose bent head suggests that she is listening rather than questioning' (Exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago, Odilon Redon, the prince of mysterious dreams, 1994, p. 216).
As one of Redon's most important images of the 1890s Le chevalier mystique received critical acclaim from the followers of the Symbolist movement when it was shown at the fifth Peintres-graveurs exhibition at the Galerie Durand-Ruel, in April 1893. 'Tiphereth (a pseudonym for Emile Gary de Lacroze), a co-founder of the Ordre de la Rose+Croix, wrote in the esoteric art magazine Le Coeur: "Odilon Redon exhibits a capital work, Le chevalier mystique, distinguished by its beauty. This drawing absorbed me for a long time, and I felt vibrating within me the whole gamut of strange sensations of an unknown world". Soon afterward Le chevalier mystique was bought by Count Antoine de la Rochefoucauld, the owner and driving force behind Le Coeur. The magazine's editor-in-chief, Jules Bois, wrote an imaginary dialogue between the knight and the 'chimera', in which the knight identifies the severed head as that of his mistress (representing lust), over whom he has triumphed. The chimera argues that, in killing her, he went too far; he should rather have cencentrated on battling the sin within himself. Nevertheless his good intentions will ensure humankind an enlightened destiny (ibid., p. 216).
By circa 1972 the work was in the possession of the renowned collector of rare tribal art, Hubert Goldet, whose African collection was dispersed with some sensation in 2001.
'Redon's image of the forbidding, emblematic and hieratic Mystical Knight (the present work) earned him a place in the pantheon of occult Symbolism. Its spacial, inconographical, and psychological ambiguities inspired exalted spiritual interpretation in contemporary criticism. With his right hand, the armour-clad knight holds a severed head, perhaps that of a women, perhaps that of Saint John the Baptist, in which latter case the figure takes on the attributes of Salome, the Symbolist antisaint, who had the martyr beheaded. With his left hand, he points firmly and confidently. A sanctifying arch casts a halo around him. A coloumn springing from the parapet seems to dissolve into the arch, in turn becoming the wing of a crouching sphinx. The knight's imperious gesture is acknowledged by the sphinx, whose bent head suggests that she is listening rather than questioning' (Exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago, Odilon Redon, the prince of mysterious dreams, 1994, p. 216).
As one of Redon's most important images of the 1890s Le chevalier mystique received critical acclaim from the followers of the Symbolist movement when it was shown at the fifth Peintres-graveurs exhibition at the Galerie Durand-Ruel, in April 1893. 'Tiphereth (a pseudonym for Emile Gary de Lacroze), a co-founder of the Ordre de la Rose+Croix, wrote in the esoteric art magazine Le Coeur: "Odilon Redon exhibits a capital work, Le chevalier mystique, distinguished by its beauty. This drawing absorbed me for a long time, and I felt vibrating within me the whole gamut of strange sensations of an unknown world". Soon afterward Le chevalier mystique was bought by Count Antoine de la Rochefoucauld, the owner and driving force behind Le Coeur. The magazine's editor-in-chief, Jules Bois, wrote an imaginary dialogue between the knight and the 'chimera', in which the knight identifies the severed head as that of his mistress (representing lust), over whom he has triumphed. The chimera argues that, in killing her, he went too far; he should rather have cencentrated on battling the sin within himself. Nevertheless his good intentions will ensure humankind an enlightened destiny (ibid., p. 216).
By circa 1972 the work was in the possession of the renowned collector of rare tribal art, Hubert Goldet, whose African collection was dispersed with some sensation in 2001.