The Good Carpenter or Destiny

Plate 3 of 8 from the series 'Les Cantilènes', the title of a group of poems by Jean Moréas. 'Destiny', also known as 'The Good Woodworker' illustrates Moréas's poem, 'Nocturne', relating the tale of a coffin maker who was asked to make a coffin for the narrator's lost love. The unusual point of view draws the viewer precariously into the scene to peer over the man's shoulder and into the narrow coffin intself.
In 1891–92 Bernard worked on a series of hand-colored zincographs (planographic prints for which a zinc plate instead of a lithographic stone is used as a matrix) intended as illustrations for Les Cantilènes, a collection of forty lyrical poems in the medieval manner by the Symbolist Jean Moréas, first published in 1886.
In Livre d'Art during it's first year of publication (Numbers 2-3, May-July to August 15, 1892) the following announcement appeared:
“On demande des souscripteurs pour un supplement exceptionnel du Livre d’Art se composant de 8 lithographies d’ E. Bernard destinées à illustrer Les Cantilènes de Jean Moréas…il sera tire 25 exemplaires numérotés et signés de l’auteur, du format du Livre d’Art sur papier Japon (365x270)."
The fully bound supplements promised in 1892 were never pulished by Livre d'Art. The titles given to the works in the Morane catalogue raisonné are those that Bernard gave to the plates during the Jacques Doucet sale twenty years later.