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Lot Essay
The woodcut Melancholy III explores, as does so much of the artist's work, the theme of loss and despair. The subject is his friend the art critic Jappe Nilsen, in an attitude of brooding gloom. Behind him three figures walk towards a boat, his lover Oda Lasson, her future husband, and the boatman who is rowing them away together for a rendez-vous. Munch was going through a similar situation at the time and was expressing his own same feelings through his friend's experience.
A complex piece of printmaking, the block for Melancholy III was first cut apart by the artist with a jigsaw, inked and then fitted back together again to allow one pass through the press, for the colors which were then overprinted with the black keyblock.
A complex piece of printmaking, the block for Melancholy III was first cut apart by the artist with a jigsaw, inked and then fitted back together again to allow one pass through the press, for the colors which were then overprinted with the black keyblock.