About This Artwork

Odilon Redon
French, 1840-1916

Cauldron of the Sorceress, 1879

Various charcoals, with stumping, erasing, and incising, on pale-pink wove paper with red and blue fibers altered to a golden tone
408 x 371 mm
Signed lower left, in black chalk: "ODILON REDON"
David Adler Collection, 1950.1432

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

The Art Institute of Chicago, "Exhibition of 19 charcoals owned by Jean Goriany [or Henri Petiet] made for Flaubert's The Temptation of Saint Anthony," August 1941.

Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, "Exposition Odilon Redon," March-April 1894, cat. 37.

The Hague, Haagsche Kunstkring, "Odilon Redon," May-June 1894, cat. 18.

New York, The Museum of Modern Art, "Redon, Drawings and Lithographs," 1952, cat. 4.

Palm Beach, Fla., Society of the Four Arts, "Odilon Redon," 1955, cat. 44.

Paris, Orangerie des Tuileries, "Odilon Redon," October 1956-January 1957, cat. 20.

The Hague, Gemeentemuseum, "Odilon Redon," May 3- June 23, 1957, cat. 7.

New York, The Museum of Modern Art, "Odilon Redon, Gustave Moreau, Rodolphe Bresdin," December 4, 1961-February 4, 1962 cat. 92; traveled to The Art Institute of Chicago, March 2-April 15, 1962.

The Art Institute of Chicago, "Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams," June 9-September 18, 1994, cat. 53, cat. by Douglas Druick et al; traveled to Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, October 20, 1994-January 15, 1995, and London, Royal Academy of Arts, February 16-May 21, 1995.

Melbourne, Australia, The National Gallery of Victoria, "The Enchanted Stone: The Graphic World Of Odilon Redon," July 7-August 19, 1990, cat. 27; traveled to Sydney, Australia, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, August 29-October 14, 1990.

Gifu, Japan, The Museum of Fine Arts, "Odilon Redon --Le souci de l'absolu (Search for the Absolute)," October 8-December 8, 2002; traveled to Shimane, Japan, Shimane Art Museum, August 2-September 23, 2002.

Publication History

Aug. Barbey, "Odilon Redon," Le Memorial Artistique, (April 1894).

Sven Sandström, Le Monde imaginarie d'Odilon Redon (Lund, 1955), pp. 39-40, 43, 48, 60-61, 174, 176, 178, 221 and 226, fig. 134 and 29.

The Burlington Magazine, C: 665 (August, 1958), p. 290.

Klaus Berger, Odilon Redon, Fantasy and Colour, translated by Michael Bullock (New York, 1965 ), p. 224, no. 575.

Harold Joachim and Sandra Haller Olsen, French Drawings and Sketchbooks of the Nineteenth Century (Chicago, 1979), p. 79, 4D3.

Suzy Levy, Journal inedit de Ricardo Vines, Odilon Redon et le Milieu Occultists (1897-1915), (Paris, 1987), p. XIX.

Steven Frederick Eisenman, The Temptation of Saint Redon: Biography, Ideology and Style in the Noirs of Odilon Redon (Chicago, 1992) p. 116, fig. 85.

Alec Wildenstein, Odilon Redon: Catalogue Raisonné de l'Oeuvre Peint et Dessiné 2 (Paris, 1994), pp. 219-220, no. 1173 (ill.).

Ownership History

On deposit or sold to Moline, Galerie Laffitte, Paris, February 12, 1896 [according to Chicago 1994]; returned to Redon [according to Chicago 1994]; sold to Ambroise Vollard (1867-1939), Paris, December 1899 [according Chicago 1994]. Henri Petiet (1894-1980), Paris, by March 1940 [according to Wildenstein 1992]; sold to the Art Institute, 1950.