BUFFET Bernard - Complete work with suite "L'ENFER DE DANTE" 76x58cm - 1977

Bernard Buffet illustrated in 1977 one of the pinnacles of world literature with Dante's Inferno, the first canticle of The Divine Comedy, in a particularly sought-after bibliophile edition combining text and original engravings. The book is illustrated with 11 original drypoints, accompanied, in this rare deluxe copy, by an additional suite of the 11 drypoints signed and numbered XIX/XXX. All prints are on Moulin du Gué paper in an imposing format of 76 × 58 cm. The Florentine poet and the damned of his Inferno find in Buffet's line an interpreter of rare accuracy: emaciated faces, tormented bodies, scratched black lines, and dramatic compositions give a striking intensity to Dante's descent into Hell. The drypoints were printed on the hand presses of Atelier Lacourière et Frélaut, a historic intaglio workshop associated with the greatest artists of the 20th century, and the book was published by Maurice Garnier, a gallerist and publisher inseparable from Bernard Buffet's career.

This is the rare deluxe copy numbered 19/120, part of only thirty copies enriched with the signed additional suite. The set thus includes 22 original drypoints by Bernard Buffet and retains its original red cloth slipcase (79 × 59.5 × 5.5 cm). Each plate of the suite is hand-signed in pencil by the artist, as is the colophon, enhancing the exceptional and well-documented nature of this work, referenced in the catalogue raisonné of Bernard Buffet's engravings under numbers 357 to 367. The confrontation between the book's plates and those of the suite allows full appreciation of Buffet's drawing power, the nervousness of his line, and the expressiveness of his figures. At the crossroads of modern art, bibliophilia, and original prints, this 1977 Dante's Inferno, complete and in perfect condition, is a particularly desirable set for collectors of Bernard Buffet, illustrated books, original prints, and 20th-century bibliophile editions. The presence of the signed suite, the limited number of copies, the artist's handwritten signatures, as well as the printing by Lacourière and Frélaut and the Maurice Garnier edition, confer a special interest to this copy within Bernard Buffet's engraved work. Also to discover at the gallery: the Don Quixote of 1989, another major illustrated book by the artist enriched with a suite, as well as the work Bernard Buffet lithographe by Charles Sorlier.