À Sade

Since the early 1930s, Hans Bellmer had taken a keen interest in the work of Sade: “I intend to devote myself intensively to Sade’s work, in several projects illustrating Les 120 journées de Sodome and La Philosophie dans le boudoir,” projects that would remain unfinished. Bellmer nevertheless produced drawings that he later used for his two great print suites paying homage to Sade: À Sade (1961) and Petit traité de morale (1968).

In both works, the prints result from the superimposition of two engraved copperplates. For the color copies, each plate is printed in a different, variable tone per sheet; “each in a different color — combining the images through condensation in the Freudian sense, thereby creating entirely different engravings despite the repetition of the plates” (Flahutez, op. cit.). The edition of À Sade is limited to 55 copies in black (including 5 on Japanese paper), with an additional 20 artist’s suites in two colors, numbered by hand in pencil, printed separately on Arches vellum.

Luce Barbier is the daughter of Charles-Henri Barbier, Claude Cahun’s childhood friend from Nantes; Cahun and Suzanne Malherbe made her their universal legatee. Several works by Bellmer from the Centre Pompidou collections entered via dation through Luce and Bettina Barbier, in 2001. The justification leaf of this copy was, exceptionally, entirely composed and autographed by Bellmer. Among these color copies, three others are known also bearing the altered title, but with a printed justification.

Pierre Dourthe, Bellmer, pp. 224–238; Bibliothèque Filipacchi, Hans Bellmer, 16–17; Dutel 942; Eros invaincu 117; Collection Gérard Nordman, II, no. 76; Pierre Dourthe, Bellmer, le principe de perversion, Paris, 1999, no. 330; Hans Bellmer. Anatomie du désir, Paris, Centre Pompidou, 2006, no. 216, p. 21; Fabrice Flahutez, Hans Bellmer: l’anagramme et l’estampe au service d’un rêve surréaliste, 2003, no. 52, pp. 79–94.