© The Henry Moore Foundation. All Rights Reserved
STONE II 1977
Henry Moore (1898 – 1986)
Details
- Dimension
- 29.2 X 19.7 CM
- Media
- ETCHING AND AQUATINT
- Accession number
- P5118
Summary
During 1977 Moore was approached by an Italian print publishing house with a request to produce a series of illustrations to Dante’s Rime petrose. Although this venture came to nothing the plates were made and later published as a group. The inspiration was not Dante’s text but a flint from the maquette studio, which was drawn in different positions and transformed to give an ambiguous illusion of female form. Moore reversed here his treatment of the Elephant Skull (P5062-P5069); there a large natural form is investigated from the inside, here a small insignificant stone is isolated, projected forward to appear forever turning. The Dante Stones album containing five etchings was printed by J C Editions Ltd, London in an edition of 50 and published by Raymond Spencer Company Ltd, Much Hadham in 1980.
Glossary
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Edition
All copies of a book, print, portfolio, sculpture, etc., issued or produced at one time or from a single set of type. Printed works can be made in an edition of between one and many thousands of copies. With most printing techniques the plate or screen will become worn if very many prints are made, so to maintain quality (and exclusivity) editions of original prints are usually kept below one hundred copies and normally average between thirty and fifty copies. Prints made up of several different plates can be extremely complicated and time-consuming to edition, so in these cases editions are kept low for practical reasons. Sculptural editions are a set of cast sculptures taken from the same mould or master. These editions are usually much lower, consisting of no more than six casts. Though each cast in an edition might have a lower value than a unique piece, it may be a more effective way of offsetting costs of an expensive process such as bronze casting.
