47. Edward Julius Detmold
(1883-1957)

Phoenix

(click on image to print)
Detmold, Phoenix

Phoenix

Etching and drypoint, 1899, 260 x 177 mm., Dodgson 54 ii/ii. Very fine impression in black and gold on thin, laid, oriental paper with small margins, signed in pencil and dated 1900. The complex ornament, added in the second state, as well as the nimbus over the bird's head are printed in gold. The image was later chosen by the artist for the cover of his illustrated edition of "The Fables of Aesop," published in 1909. The phoenix was a mythical Arabian bird which burned itself every 500 years and arose new-born from its ashes. Detmold based his image probably on a hawk. Although done well before the death of his twin brother, Edward is already showing hints of the orientalism that would preoccupy him in later days. The strong, naturalistic technique is characteristic of his early years (he was sixteen when he made this superb print), but there is an imaginative sensibility here that goes beyond natural history and into an emotional area, apparently foreign to his twin brother, redolent of earlier times in print making.