ALPHONSE MUCHA (1860-1939) [JIRÍ MUCHA AND HUMMINGBIRD.] Etching. Circa 1920.
8 5/8x8 1/2 inches, 30x21 1/2 cm.
Condition A: creasing along plate mark. Matted and framed. Unexamined out of frame.
This is a tender, sweet and previously unrecorded etching of Jirí Mucha, Alphonse's son, when he was four or five years old. We could find no record of this etching in any reference books or appearing at auction, and the artist only very rarely worked in this medium at all. The Mucha family suggests that the artist "did it for himself and the immediate family so the overall number is likely to be quite small." The image is quite similar to a cover Mucha designed for the Hearst International Magazine in January, 1922, which features a young boy for whom Mucha used his son as a model, featuring this same angelic face and hair. rare.