4. Maxime Lalanne
(1827-1886)
Richmond

(click on image to print)
Lalanne, Richmond

Richmond

Etching, 1871, 184 x 265 mm., Béraldi 57, Lalanne 82, B. N. Inv. 27, Villet 82 iii/iii. Fine, sharp impression on wove paper with good margins, as published in Portfolio that year. In 1866, Lalanne published his Traité de la Gravure à l’Eau-Forte, a manual on how to etch, which went through many editions and translations and probably brought more people to etching, both artists and collectors, than any single publication. Though that treatise contained etched examples, this print is a work of a few years later. Except for the geographical location (Lalanne did only two prints of England), it is a prototypical Lalanne etching, combining meticulous detail with totally spontaneous drawing, the whole accomplished in pure etching: no engraved emendations, no drypoint, no manipulated plate tone. Lalanne was a perfectionist and a purist. He found in the basic etching techniques enumerated in his book everything he needed to get his message across and his artistic personality understood.