EUGÈNE GRASSET (1841-1917) LA VALKYRIE. Circa 1893. 35 1/2x25 1/8 inches, 90x64 cm. P. Schott & Cie., Paris. Condition B+: restored losses and restoration at edges and in corners; restoration along sharp vertical and horizontal folds. Die Walküre was the second of four operas in Richard Wagner's epic Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). It premiered in 1870 at Munich's National Theatre, and played for the first time Paris on May 12, 1893. Soon thereafter, Schott, the famed sheet music publisher, issued a score for the opera. Grasset's medieval style lent itself perfectly to Wagner's Norse myth-based saga. The artist depicts the last scene of the opera in which Wotan puts Brünnhilde to sleep, surrounded by fire, only to be woken by a hero "freer than God." Rare. DFP-II 414, Reims 685, Arwas 4.
