Arthur Bowen Davies

Circling Doves, 1921
Litography, 41 x 27.5 cm
Circling Doves is an ...

Arthur Bowen Davies

Circling Doves, 1921
Litography, 41 x 27.5 cm
Circling Doves is an original lithograph by Arthur Bowen Davies, one of the most important American artists, who lived from 1862 to 1928. The print was realized in 1921 and catalogued n. 189 in the volume by J. S. Czestochowski Arthur B. Davies: a catalogue raisonné of the prints, London, 1987.


The artwork is unsigned and presents, printed on the lower margin at the center, the inscription “CIRCLIN DOVES Lithograph by Arthur B. Davies / cortesy of Ferrargil Galleries”. This edition was printed by the Galleria Ferrargil in New York, dealing mostly with American contemporary art, founded in 1915 and active until 1955.

The image reproduced in the lithograph is very pleasant and graceful, representing two female nudes, one kneeling down in the foreground, the other standing from behind. Some doves are flying around them.


Multiples of this print are present, also in signed and colored versions, in various public collections, like the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, of the Cleveland Museum of Art, of the Young and Legion of Honor museums in San Francisco. Arthur Bowen Davies was an American artist, strongly influenced by European avant-garde. His oeuvre is very eclectic and stretches from the most classical figurations close to the 19th-century tonalism of Whistler to the Pre-Raphaelites with Cubist and Fauvist quotations. The lines and composition of this beautiful lithograph recall Japanese prints of the early 20th century, which deeply influenced the art of European painters of the period.
The state of preservation is very good, except for a small restored rip on the higher margin and another on the right margin of the paper.