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Lot Essay
Delacroix's 17 illustrations and the portrait of author were first published in the French luxury edition of Goethe's Faust in 1828, published by Motte and Sautelet in Paris. The present set of the lithographs lacks the very rare seventh image, Mephistopheles receiving the Student. The stone for this plate got either lost or broken after the first edition; in subsequent editions it was replaced with an anonymous copy.
Commented on by Goethe himself, the images by Delacroix are a true milestone in the rise of Romanticism and a major contribution to the redefinition of the relation between text and illustration in the 19th century.
Delacroix's journey to England in 1825, where he attended a performance of Faust in London, strongly influenced him. It was presumably following this visit to the theatre that the idea of an illustrated edition of the tragedy began to take shape.
With Romanticism, Delacroix embraced its fantastical elements, and the illustrations for Goethe's Faust are not an isolated project but denote a persisting interest in the 'gothic'. Following on from his work on Faust, other illustration projects continued to occupy him with subjects in the 'gothic' manner: from 1834 to 1843 he worked on lithographs for an edition of Shakespeare's Hamlet (see Delteil, pp. 250 - 289, nos. 103-118), before turning once again, from 1836 onwards, to Goethe, illustrating his Goetz von Berlichingen (see Delteil, pp. 290-309, nos. 119-125).
Delacroix began working on his illustrations for Goethe’s Faust shortly after the publication of Albert Stapfer's translation into French in 1825 (R. Vilain, '"An Excess of Savage Force"? - Faust in French: Stapfer, Delacroix, and Goethe’, in: The Princeton University Library Chronicle, Vol. 73, Spring 2023, no. 3, pp. 313-371). The artist was given complete freedom in his approach to the project: he chose lithography (rather than engraving) to keep the freshness and the vivacity of his own hand in the final images; the images were to be included on single pages separate from the text and without pagination; some in portrait format others printed sideways onto the pages in a landscape format. These innovations represent a major contribution to the history of book illustration - and a bold statement from the artist, who seems to impose himself as equal to the author.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) saw some of the preparatory drawings and lithographs before their publication in 1928. In fact, he received a first proof of the final lithograph of the sabbath scene as early as 1826, before all other illustrations. Goethe’s comments were enthusiastic: ‘Herr Delacroix [hat] meine eigene Vorstellung bei Szenen übertroffen hat, die ich selber gemacht habe’ (‘in scenes I myself composed, Mr Delacroix has exceeded my own imagination’; quoted from: Goethe, MA, XIX, p. 168). In 1818, presumably after seeing the complete book, Goethe summed up the style of Delacroix’s drawings and illustrations perfectly when he remarked that the artist had ‘einen unruhig strebenden Helden mit gleicher Unruhe des Griffels begleitet’ (‘accompanied a restlessly striving hero with a similarly restless pencil’; quoted from: Goethe, MA, XVIII/ii, p.125). One can’t expect a greater tribute.
Commented on by Goethe himself, the images by Delacroix are a true milestone in the rise of Romanticism and a major contribution to the redefinition of the relation between text and illustration in the 19th century.
Delacroix's journey to England in 1825, where he attended a performance of Faust in London, strongly influenced him. It was presumably following this visit to the theatre that the idea of an illustrated edition of the tragedy began to take shape.
With Romanticism, Delacroix embraced its fantastical elements, and the illustrations for Goethe's Faust are not an isolated project but denote a persisting interest in the 'gothic'. Following on from his work on Faust, other illustration projects continued to occupy him with subjects in the 'gothic' manner: from 1834 to 1843 he worked on lithographs for an edition of Shakespeare's Hamlet (see Delteil, pp. 250 - 289, nos. 103-118), before turning once again, from 1836 onwards, to Goethe, illustrating his Goetz von Berlichingen (see Delteil, pp. 290-309, nos. 119-125).
Delacroix began working on his illustrations for Goethe’s Faust shortly after the publication of Albert Stapfer's translation into French in 1825 (R. Vilain, '"An Excess of Savage Force"? - Faust in French: Stapfer, Delacroix, and Goethe’, in: The Princeton University Library Chronicle, Vol. 73, Spring 2023, no. 3, pp. 313-371). The artist was given complete freedom in his approach to the project: he chose lithography (rather than engraving) to keep the freshness and the vivacity of his own hand in the final images; the images were to be included on single pages separate from the text and without pagination; some in portrait format others printed sideways onto the pages in a landscape format. These innovations represent a major contribution to the history of book illustration - and a bold statement from the artist, who seems to impose himself as equal to the author.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) saw some of the preparatory drawings and lithographs before their publication in 1928. In fact, he received a first proof of the final lithograph of the sabbath scene as early as 1826, before all other illustrations. Goethe’s comments were enthusiastic: ‘Herr Delacroix [hat] meine eigene Vorstellung bei Szenen übertroffen hat, die ich selber gemacht habe’ (‘in scenes I myself composed, Mr Delacroix has exceeded my own imagination’; quoted from: Goethe, MA, XIX, p. 168). In 1818, presumably after seeing the complete book, Goethe summed up the style of Delacroix’s drawings and illustrations perfectly when he remarked that the artist had ‘einen unruhig strebenden Helden mit gleicher Unruhe des Griffels begleitet’ (‘accompanied a restlessly striving hero with a similarly restless pencil’; quoted from: Goethe, MA, XVIII/ii, p.125). One can’t expect a greater tribute.