Anders Zorn’s etching, “Girl with a Cigarette”

Anders Zorn (aka Anders Leonard Zorn) (1860–1920)

“Girl with a Cigarette”, (Cigarrettrökerska II), 1891

(See the painting relating to this subject at Christie’s auction, Sale 2885, “19th Century European Art”, 27 October 2014, New York, Rockefeller Center: http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/anders-zorn-swedish-1860-1920-the-cigarette-girl-5834661-details.aspx)

Etching with drypoint and plate tone, printed in bistre coloured ink on wove paper, trimmed with thread margins and laid upon a support sheet of heavy wove white paper with generous margins.

Size: (support sheet) 42 2 x 36; (plate) 15.7 x 11.7 cm; (image borderline) 15 x 11.2 cm

Printed immediately below (but outside) the platemark (i.e. this text is not inscribed on the plate): “Original-Radirung von Anders Leonard Zorn (f. Seite 168)”

The curator of the British Museum offers the following information about this print in the BM collection: 

“Text from Frances Carey, 'Modern Scandinavian Prints', BM 1997, cat.14: This impression is one of 425 unsigned copies published by the F.f.G.K. in 1893; the first plate, which was identical in size, was abandoned by Zorn after pulling only three proofs. The subject is an American girl in Paris, whose smoking habit marks her out as one of a new generation of more liberated women.” (http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1452848&partId=1&searchText=zorn+cigarette&page=1)

Delteil 62 (Loys Delteil 1902, “Le Peintre-Graveur Illustré [XIXe et XXe siècles]”, 31 vols, Paris); Asplund 1920 62.II (Karl Asplund1920, “Zorn's Engraved Work. A Descriptive Catalogue”, Stockholm, Bukowski)

Condition: well-printed impression, trimmed to the platemark and laid on heavy wove white paper with large margins. There is a small restored tear on the lower edge and a nick in the upper left margin (both defects are difficult to see).

I am selling this iconic etching by Zorn for a total cost of AU$275 (currently US$208.20/EUR193.76/GBP167.50 at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing very important print epitomising the Belle Époque in Paris, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

This print expresses what must have been a liberating time in Paris towards the close of the nineteenth century. Certainly the spirit of change is easy to see in the works of artists living in Monmartre like Toulouse-Lautrec. To better understand the spirit of liberation captured in this print, Catherine Sawinski, Assistant Curator of Earlier European Art at the Milwaukee Art Museum, explains its essence perfectly: “This young lady is a ‘modern girl,’ one who smokes in public and doesn’t care what others think! In a way, Zorn presents her as a symbol of the cultural changes of the late nineteenth century. He wrote that his model for this image was an American who had moved to Paris in order to take advantage of the excitement that the city had to offer.” (https://blog.mam.org/2016/06/21/from-the-collection-anders-zorn-captures-modern-life/)