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    Museum collections / Art Institute of Chicago
    Guardian Spirit of the Waters
    Odilon Redon. Guardian Spirit of the Waters, 1878. The Art Institute of Chicago. Public domain (CC0).

    Public collection via the Art Institute of Chicago

    AT-00004319

    Guardian Spirit of the Waters

    by Odilon Redon

    View at the Art Institute of Chicago

    Inscriptions

    Signed lower left, in black chalk: "OD.R."

    Provenance

    Sold by the artist to Amboise Vollard (1867- 1939), Paris, December 1899 [according to Chicago 1994]. Henri Petiet (1894-1980) Paris, by March 1940 [according to Wildenstein 1992]; sold to the Art Institute, 1950.

    Exhibition history

    The Art Institute of Chicago, "Exhibition of 19 charcoals owned by Jean Goriany [or Henri Petiet] made for Flaubert's The Temptation of Saint Anthony," August, 1941. New York, The Museum of Modern Art, "Modern Drawings," 1944, p. 32, cat. by Monroe Wheeler. New York, The Museum of Modern Art, "Redon, Drawing, and Lithographs," 1952, cat. 5. Paris, Orangerie des Tuileries, "Odilon Redon," October 1956-January 1957, cat. 22 as "Genie sur les eaux." The Hague, Gemeentemuseum,"Odilon Redon," May 3- June 23, 1957, cat. 8. New York, The Museum of Modern Art, "Odilon Redon, Gustave Moreau, Rodolphe Bresdin," December 4, 1961-February 4, 1962, cat. 88; traveled to The Art Institute of Chicago, March 2-April 15, 1962. New York, Wildenstein and Company, "Master Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago," October 17-November 30, 1963, cat. 111. St Louis, Mo., Washington University Gallery of Art, "Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Artists and Draughtsmen," March 13–April 8, 1966, no cat. The Art Institute of Chicago, "Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams," June 9-September 18, 1994, cat. 50, cat. by Douglas Druick et al; traveled to Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, October 20, 1994-January 15, 1995, and London, Royal Academy of Arts, February 16-May 21, 1995. Paris, Musée du Louvre, "La peinture comme crime ou la part maudite de la réalité," October 19, 2001-January 14, 2002. Gifu, Japan, The Museum of Fine Arts, "Odilon Redon --Le souci de l'absolu (Search for the Absolute)," October 8-December 8, 2002, cat. 33; traveled to Shimane, Japan, Shimane Art Museum, August 2, 2002 -September 23, 2002. The Art Institute of Chicago, "Strange Realities: The Symbolist Imagination", October 4, 2025 - January 5, 2026.

    Publications

    Hugh Edwards, "Redon, Flaubert, Vollard," Bulletin of The Art Institute of Chicago, 36:1 (1942), p. 4 (ill.). William Lieberman, "Redon, Drawings, and Lithographs," The Museum of Modern Art Bulletin, XIX:2 (Winter, 1952), p. 6 (ill.). Paul Sachs, Modern Prints and Drawings (New York, 1954), p. 54, pl. 47. Sven Sandström, Le Monde imaginarie d'Olidon Redon (Lund, 1955), pp. 171 and 226, fig 134. Roseline Bacou, Odilon Redon (Geneva, 1956), p. 70, note 2. Klaus Berger, Odilon Redon, Fantasy and Colour, trans. by Michael Bullock (New York, 1965 ), p. 225, no. 584 and 594, fig. 45. Jean Selz, Odilon Redon, translated by Eileen Hennessy, (Naefels, 1978), p. 14 (ill.). Richard Hobbs, Odilon Redon (London, 1977), p. 26 fig. 17. Harold Joachim and Sandra Haller Olsen, French Drawings and Sketchbooks of the Nineteenth Century (Chicago, 1979) p. 79, 4D8. Richard R. Brettell, French Impressionists (Chicago, 1987), pp. 94-95 and 119 (ill.). Jean Vialla, Odilon Redon (Paris, 1988), p. 78 (ill.). Klaus Berger, "Odilon Redon," Encyclopaedia Universalis (1989), p. 646. Alec Wildenstein, Odilon Redon: Catalogue Raisonné de l'oeuvre peint et dessiné 2 (Paris, 1994), pp. 196-197, no. 1129 (ill.). Howard Smagula, Creative Drawing, 2nd ed. (London, 2001), pp. 180-181, fig. 8.16. Susan M. Canning, Patrick Florizoone, Nancy Ireson, Kimberly Nichols, Debora Silverman, Anna Swimbourne, and Sabine Taevernier, with a forward by Herwig Todts, "James Ensor: The Temptation of Saint Anthony" (Art Institute of Chicago, 2014). https://publications.artic.edu/ensor/reader/temptationstanthony; Accessed August 2015, Section 236, fig. 1 (ill.).

    Open-access museum data

    This record comes from the open-access collection data that the Art Institute of Chicago publishes for unrestricted use (Creative Commons Zero). Art Trackers shows a selection of the museum's published fields. The Art Institute of Chicago is not an Art Trackers client and has not reviewed or endorsed this page; the museum's own website is the authoritative record.

    • View this work at the Art Institute of Chicago
    • The Art Institute of Chicago: open-access terms

    Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.

    Quick Overview

    Artist
    Odilon Redon / French, 1840-1916
    Date
    1878
    Medium
    Various charcoals, with touches of black chalk, stumping, erasing, incising, and subtractive sponge work, heightened with traces of white chalk, on cream wove paper altered to a golden tone
    Dimensions
    46.6 × 37.6 cm (18 3/8 × 14 13/16 in.)
    Type
    Drawing
    Classification
    charcoal
    Style
    Post-Impressionism
    Place
    France
    Department
    Prints and Drawings
    Credit line
    David Adler Collection
    Accession no.
    1950.1428

    More by Odilon Redon in museum collections

    • Violette Heymann

      Odilon Redon

      1910 · Drawing

      Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art

      AT-00000289
    • Orpheus

      Odilon Redon

      c. 1903–10 · Drawing

      Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art

      AT-00000290
    • Vase of Flowers

      Odilon Redon

      1916 · Drawing

      Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art

      AT-00000316
    • Melancholy

      Odilon Redon

      c. 1868 · Drawing

      Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art

      AT-00000318

    Open-access museum record · AT-00004319

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