DELABY - Lot 145

DELABY PHILIPPE DELABY ◊ MURENA La Pourpre et l'or (T.1), Dargaud 1997 Original plates #2 and #3. Signed. India ink and wash on paper Each: 36.4 × 50.8 cm (14.33 × 20 in.) This magnificent scene, signed by Jean Dufaux, shows the last moments of the fighters in the arena into which Emperor Claudius, appointed by the Praetorian Guard after the assassination of Caligula, descends to feast on the last gasp of the tortured. This scene inaugurates the Murena series, whose characters illustrate the empire's worst moment: Agrippina and Nero are about to seize power, while Claudius, the Gallic emperor, is about to repudiate them in favor of Lolia Paulina and her son Lucius Murena. Dufaux and Delaby's art is to portray, with implacable crudity, the inhumanity and cruelty of an empire that has often been sold to us as a beacon of civilization.