25. Félix Buhot
(1847-1898)

Idée du Premier Frontispice pour “L’Ensorcelée” de J. Barbey d’Aurevilly (Idea for the First Frontispiece for J. Barbey d’Aurevilly’s novel “Bewitched”)

(click on image to print)
Buhot, Idée du Premier

Idée du Premier Frontispice pour “L’Ensorcelée” de J. Barbey d’Aurevilly (Idea for the First Frontispiece for J. Barbey d’Aurevilly’s novel “Bewitched”)

Black, white and colored chalks, wash, white and colored gouache, ca. 1877, Dufresne 359, 318 x 231 mm. Buhot illustrated three novels of his Norman compatriot Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly with original etchings. He also worked extensively on a frontispiece for one of them, a project that never came to full fruition but resulted only in an unpublished print (see the previous number). This is an early, and painterly, study for that print, one of a number of drawings related to it. It is drawn and painted on sheet of thin, brownish wove paper, actually an advertising sheet for the journal L’Artiste. It could as easily served as the model for an intriguing painting – but it never did.