Ravachol: ein zyklus by Escher, Hans; (Ravachol) - 1967-1969

Vienna and Munich: Jugend und Volk, 1967-1969. Limited edition. From Edition "A" (numbered as set XIII of XX), featuring the impressively-illustrated clamshell portfolio (50 cm. tall), printed red-on-black. Portfolio boards show scuffing, with moderate wear to corners and lips; housing suite of 12 etchings of various dimensions, ranging from 17 x 32 cm. to 40 x 24 cm. With each of the etchings signed and dated in pencil and set into windowed-mats (49 x 40 cm.). With some offsetting from mats to margins of prints, not affecting images. Accompanied by original ink-and-wash sketch (24 x 32 cm.), set into similar mat. Also accompanied by 1969 trade publication (Jugend und Volk); cloth-bound boards (32 cm.), housed in an illustrated slipcase that matches the larger portfolio. Contents well-illustrated, with text in German; 68 pages. During the tumultuous period of 1967-1968, Viennese graphic artist Hans Escher revisited the career of the legendary French anarchist Ravachol (the maternal pseudonym for François Claudius Koenigstein), producing a narrative cycle of twelve etchings and twenty ink-and-wash sketches. As strikingly captured on the front of this portfolio, Ravachol was ultimately guillotined for a series of bombings that protested State violence in the decades following the Paris Commune. In 1969, Escher's images would be reproduced in book form by Jugend und Volk, accompanied by translated excerpts from Jean Maitron's biography of Ravachol, and a critical essay by Johann Muschik on the contemporaneity of Escher's graphical interpretation of the anarchist legend. The limited edition of this work—of which this is number XIII—consisted of twenty large portfolios, containing a complete suite of the full-sized etchings that illustrated the trade publication. With each of the portfolios further hosting one of the original ink-and-wash sketches—in this instance, of Ravachol's arrest in the streets While three of the etchings are individually reported by the BnF, we were unable to discover any OCLC records for the complete portfolio.