23. Félix Bracquemond
(1833-1914)

Le Vieux Coq (The Old Cock)

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Le Vieux Coq

Le Vieux Coq (The Old Cock)

Etching, 1882, 345 x 268 mm., Béraldi 222 iv/v, B. N. Inv. 388. Brilliant impression in red-brown on wove paper with very large, full margins, signed in pencil from the edition of 200; old hinging tape along the right side verso. Truly one of Bracquemond's avian masterpieces, the work shows careful and accurate observation,with perhaps a certain interpretive exaggeration, and superb etching technique that sets the meticulously delineated and shaded bird against a lightly and freely etched line of reeds bending slightly in the breeze. Some modernists complain about the added background, but it is touches like that that make him a great etcher.