Balthus (Balthasar Kłossowski, known as) (1908-2001 - Lot 14

Balthus (Balthasar Kłossowski, known as) (1908-2001 )Young Seated Girl. (Project for P. J. Jouve, Language, illustrations by Balthus, Joseph Sima and André Masson, Paris, L'Arche, 1952). Lithograph. 33 x 25 cm. Monnier I 1603. Very nice proof on vellum, dedicated "pour ma bonne Henriette" in pen and sepia ink. All margins. Framed. The dedicatee is Henriette Gomès, a gallery owner living at 6 rue du Cirque in Paris, who exhibited Balthus. She had met Balthus before the war, when she was a collaborator of Pierre Loeb, and defended him without fail in her gallery, which opened in 1949. In her catalog raisonné (Balthus, l'œuvre complet, Paris, Gallimard, 1999), Virginie Monnier specifies that another drawing, referenced under her number I 1602, a variant of the same subject, was printed in a series of 10 lithographic proofs. She does not seem to know of any lithographed version of our subject.