A commanding Art Deco etching by Georges-Lucien Guyot showing a lion and a lioness together. The lion stands in profile, broad-chested, with his dark mane framing his face as he looks out at the viewer. The lioness lies beside him and rests her head against his chest, in a quiet gesture of closeness. Guyot models both animals in soft, layered tones of black and grey, building their muscular forms against a bare background. The overlapping bodies form a tight, sculptural group, and that sense of form recalls his work as a sculptor.
Guyot was one of the leading French animaliers of the interwar period, and he worked as a painter, sculptor, and printmaker. He spent long hours sketching live animals at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, and big cats were his favorite subject. He is best known for his bronze sculptures of panthers, pumas, and bears, and his prints show the same strong sense of form and the same simplified, modern line.
The work is presented in a black wood frame with a gilt inner slip and a cream mat. It is framed identically to Guyot’s Seated Puma and Reclining Tiger.