129 - The Disciples of Emmaus

The Disciples of Emmaus Color lithograph 38.6 x 45.7 cm (image) 50 x 64.5 cm (sheet) Signed and numbered in pencil in the lower left margin: Maurice Denis No. 8/100 Enhanced in the lower right margin with a watercolor depiction of a child’s head in prayer (Restorations) Provenance: Maurice Denis Collection Private collection Bibliography: Cailler 84 This lithograph is related to the 1896 painting “The Pilgrims of Emmaus.” “Exhibited at the Société nationale des beaux-arts in 1895, the large version of *The Pilgrims of Emmaus* (H. 177, W. 278 cm, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Maurice Denis Departmental Museum) is one of Denis’s most ambitious paintings from his Nabi period; he had planned it as early as his notes from his 1893 honeymoon (Journal, vol. I, p. 103) and kept the work throughout his life. Drawing on a subject and iconography steeped in a long tradition, the painter, as was his custom, transposed them into the world of his time and his personal life. Set in an inn on the hill of Fourqueux, across from Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the scene offers a view of the town illuminated by the setting sun and, notably—in a curious premonition—Denis’s two future homes: the Priory and its chapel, and, above them, the house on Rue de Mareil—the one he was living in at the time, the Villa Montrouge, being situated behind Christ’s head. But what is most significant is the depiction of Denis himself, visiting the painter, seated on the right (recognizable in the large version), with perhaps Father Vallet behind him, who played a decisive role in his formation (this central group will be reprised in the illustration for *The Imitation of Christ* published in 1903, Book III, Chapter I1). Finally, depicted twice on the left, the young bride Marthe, carrying a plate and cruets […]. The composition as a whole is the result of a highly elaborate arrangement (the Priory chapel placed at the center, near Christ, whose presence is what truly illuminates the city...), with echoing elements (three central figures and three glasses, three figures outside and three bare poplar trees; the fence with crisscrossing slats, whose pattern echoes that of the carpet...). Despite the appearance of a classical composition, based on a framework of diagonals (Christ’s right forearm rests on the diagonal rising from left to right), the work is fully in keeping with the Nabi aesthetic: a frieze-like arrangement, the expressive distortion of the women’s slender bodies—counterbalanced by the parallel inclination of the two pilgrims’ bodies—a miniaturized landscape and outer figures, and the non-convergence of the vanishing lines on the ground, compressing the space into an upright composition. Preceded by two smaller versions—one of which belonged to Arthur Fontaine and the other, signed and dated 1894 (Lyon 1994, no. 81), and was the subject of a sketch later given to André Pératé; the large painting has suffered in the preservation of its blacks. Denis made it known through a beautiful lithograph, which is fairly faithful and clearer (Cailler no. 84, reproducing a retouched version). Painted more quickly, the 1896 “reduction,” as the painter wrote in his sales journal, was made for the critic and friend André Mellerio, for whom Denis was then beginning a family portrait completed the following year (Paris, Musée d’Orsay): an important collector of his works whom he would later include in *Hommage à Cézanne* in recognition of his active support of the Nabis.” Jean-David Jumeau-Lafond in Jean-Paul Bouillon (ed.), Maurice Denis: [Musée d’Orsay exhibition, October 31, 2006 – January 21, 2007], Paris, Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 2006, page 180.