Manuel Orazi
Magic Calendar
1894
Scroll
Manuel Orazi
Magic Calendar
1894
Physical Qualities
Bound volume with full-length color lithograph illustrations on sixteen leaves, 20 × 6 5/16 in. (50.8 × 16 cm.)
Credit Line
The John Dorsey and Robert W. Armacost Acquisitions Endowment
Object Number
2019.8
This page of the exceptionally rare Magic Calendar presents a nude voluptuous woman crouched in a circle between a smoking wood pile and the glowing full moon. Her position on all fours suggests supernatural transformation from human to wild animal. The calendar’s eroticized depictions of sorcery, satanic worship, and magical ceremony closely connect female sexuality to the occult, a relationship commonly found in European art of the late 19th century.
Based on mystical and astrological texts composed by Austin de Croze, a French folklorist, this calendar for the year 1896 was commissioned by the esoteric gallerist Siegfried Bing. Originally intended in an edition of 777 copies, only 13 complete copies are known to have been printed.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 2019; Eric Gillis Fine Art, Brussels
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