L'Eclat (recto), L'Exécution (verso)

This work represents two major strands of Vallotton’s subject matter in printmaking juxtaposed on one sheet: violence and politics in public space and the tensions of the private bourgeois interior. "L’Exécution" may represent the execution of an Italian anarchist who assassinated the French president and was sentenced to the guillotine in August 1894. It relates to other prints Vallotton made around the same time devoted to death and confrontations with authority and anticipates a later lithographic series called "Crimes and Punishments." It thematizes the act of witnessing with the row of mustachioed guards on horseback creating a repetitive pattern across the background and the group of three civilian spectators at right. Vallotton initially conceived "L’Eclat" as part of his I"ntimités" (Intimacies) series (1897‒98). Although not ultimately included and instead circulated as an independent print, it displays the hallmark domestic tensions dramatized in the series, shown here in a confrontation over a letter.

Credit: The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, and Various Donors, 2018