Schuiten - Lot 157

Schuiten FRANÇOIS SCHUITEN LES CITÉS OBSCURES La Théorie du grain de sable 2 (T.11), Casterman 2008 Original plate no. 88. Signed. India ink on paper 44.7 × 61 cm (17.6 × 24.02 in.) This plate is set towards the end of the story. Mary von Rathen and Constant Abeels watch the Bugtis burn their father's body, symbolizing the disintegration of the world and natural laws in Brüsel. Mary evokes Dyrieux, guardian of the Galerie des Mondes Lointains and bearer of knowledge on the origin of anomalies. This plate is particularly beautiful and characteristic of this author. Schuiten is at the height of his art in his mastery of staging, architecture and materials, between dizzying plunges and counter-plunges and, in this night scene where darkness dominates, impeccable inking, as frank as a 19th-century engraving, and which plays with lights with incredible dexterity: from one frame to the next, their source swirls like the wind in a gust. François Schuiten's plates are rare on the market, as he took care to donate the majority of his originals to the King Baudouin Foundation (with the creation of a Schuiten Fund), the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), the Maison Autrique in Brussels, the Musée de la bande dessinée in Angoulême, the Centre de la Gravure et de l'Image imprimée in La Louvière and the Centre belge de la bande dessinée (CBBD).