?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
LOUISE BOURGEOIS Champfleurette, the White Cat.
Drypoint, aquatint and etching on Somerset smooth wove paper, 1994. 254x432 mm; 10x17 inches, full margins. Fourth state (of 4). Signed, titled, dated and numbered VII/X in pencil, lower margin. Printed by Harlan & Weaver, New York. Published by Peter Blum Edition, New York. A very good impression.
According to Louise Bourgeois, The Complete Prints and Books, online catalogue raisonné by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, "In the 1950s, when Bourgeois was living with her husband and children in an apartment on 18th Street in New York City, the family had two cats: Champfleurette and Tyger. According to Marie-Laure Bernadac, 'The name of the cat is a feminisation of the French writer and art critic Jules Champfleury' (1821-1889)." Bourgeois commented, "This is a subject which is recurrent. There is a kind of disassociation between what the girl thinks . . . that is, what she wishes . . . and what she appears to be. What she wishes is to be a goody-goody . . . but the document reveals that her deeper mind is on something completely different! What you are and what you are not are intertwined. But don't worry about her . . . even if there are several facets of herself . . . she is still whole . . . she can handle that without breaking. She accepts herself . . . she doesn't know that she is ridiculous. This implies a very strong will . . . when someone is subject to terrific pulls in many directions but does not break. It is an ideal portrait . . . it is an ambition. The charm items are the hair and the high heels . . . and also, her nails are done! The face is goody-goody . . . the eyes are lowered . . . the paws are very relaxed . . . she is comfortable. You can tell she is pleased with herself. She wants to impress. She is the same as the Bosom Lady. There is a matter of ransom here. The ransom of being so happy is that you look ridiculous . . . the saving grace is that you don't know it!" MoMA, Louise Bourgeois: The Complete Prints and Books 133.2.
