Emile Bernard

This drawing in pen and brown ink with traces of graphite presents two heads in profile or possibly two studies for a single head. According to an incription on the verso, which reads "Sainte Marie-Madelaine ...", the figures might be related to a series of lithographs Bernard prepared between 1894 and 1897 of various saints and biblical scenes (Daniel Morane, Emile Bernard: Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre gravé. Paris, 2000, no. 38-57, pp. 54-58). The series was in a then recently founded journal in Paris known for religious imagery and printmaking, L'Ymagier. (Deborah Silverman, Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Search for Sacred Art. New York, 2004, p. 450)