Vintage 1950s Rousseau "The Poet and His Muse" Swiss Art Print

A mid-century print of Rousseau’s The Poet and His Muse (1909) on 9" x 11.75" thick glossy paper with hints of patina.

Commentary on the work circa 1950s:

THE POET AND HIS MUSE (1909). - This is the famous double portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire and Marie Laurencin. Apollinaire has told us how the Douanier measured his nose, eyes, in fact all his features, with a tailor's measuring tape, and transferred these measurements with scrupulous exactitude onto the canvas. But, with all its stiffness and solemnity, how noble is the composition of this picture! In his work allegory does not pander to the conventions of academic, classical art. He treats it as it was treated in the illuminations of medieval manuscripts. Even the upraised fingers of our Muse call irresistibly to mind the Byzantine gesture of a Christ Pantocrator.

Henri Julien Félix Rousseau (1844-1910) was a French post-impressionist painter in the Naïve or Primitive manner. He was also known as Le Douanier, a humorous description of his occupation as a toll and tax collector.