Alberto Martini – The Murders in the Rue Morgue

Alberto Martini

(Oderzo 1876- Milano 1954)

The Murders in the Rue Morgue

1908

Pen and indian ink on paper, 251 x 182 mm

Signed in pen lower centre: A / MARTINI; title in pen lower centre: DOUBLE / ASSASSINAT / DANS LA RUE MORGUE
On the back, date in pencil: 1908; stamped: Galleria d’Arte Spotorno Milano
Provenance: Rome, private collection

M. Lorandi (edited by); Alberto Martini illustratore di Edgar Allan Poe, F. M. Ricci, Milan 1984, p. 245 (ill.); A. Botta; Illustrazioni incredibioli. Alberto Martini e i racconti di Edgar Allan Poe, Quodlibet/Passaré, Macerata 2017, no. 59 (ill.); A. Botta, Alberto Martini. “La penna è il bisturi dell’arte”. Disegni per Edgar Allan Poe e temi diversi, Galleria Carlo Virgilio & C., exh. cat., Rome, 2021, pp. 66, 95, no. 19 (ill.);

Esposizioni: L’Estampe. 4me Salon Annuel, presented by V. Pica (Bruxelles, Musée Moderne, 6 – 30 January 1910), Bruxelles 1910, no. 60; Pen drawings by Alberto Martini, presented by V. Pica (Lonndon, Goupil & Co, March 1914), London 1914, no. 108; Alberto Martini. Exposition de peintures, dessins, frauvures, théâtre, preface by René-Louis Doyon, (Paris, Galerie d’Art Siot-Decauville, 25 March – 11 April 1925), Paris 1925; Alberto Martini. Dipinti e disegni inediti, Galleria Spotorno, maggio 1954, Milan 1954;
A. Botta, Alberto Martini. “La penna è il bisturi dell’arte”. Disegni per Edgar Allan Poe e temi diversi, Galleria Carlo Virgilio & C., exh. cat., Rome, 2021, pp. 66, 95, no. 19 (ill.).;

The second illustration for The Murders in the Rue Morgue, smaller than the previous and intended for the end of a hypothetical publication of the short story, also depicts the orang-utan from Borneo, guilty of the brutal murders in the Parisian apartment in Rue Morgue. Martini shows the animal as it flees, still carrying the sharp razor with which he had cut the throat of the ill-fated Madame L’Espanaye. The orang-utan’s violent aspect is emphasized by the sinister presence of a spirit – Martini’s addition, not present in the book – who rides the orang-utan, clinging to its shoulders.