42. Félix Bracquemond
(1833-1914)

Les Faisans (The Pheasants)

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Les Faisans

Les Faisans (The Pheasants)

Etching with some false biting, 1898, 350 x 293 mm., Béraldi N.D., B. N. Inv. 469. A fine impression with light plate tone on Arches laid paper with full margins, signed in pencil; very pale time staining in the area of the old mount opening. The work was published by the Societé des Amis de l'Eau-Forte and bears its blindstamp (Lugt 113) in the lower margin. Although the etching is subsequent to Béraldi's catalog and states are not elucidated in the Bibliothèque National Inventaire, the image has the feeling of an unfinished work (especially for Bracquemond). And, in fact, it is so. The catalog of a Bracquemond exhibition in 1993-94 at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam shows, under the title of Les Perdrix (The Partridges, No. 36), a completed state of this plate with a fully worked-out background and foreground, a remarque, an etched signature and a new date of 1899. Our impression, therefore, is an early state, but which state of how many has apparently not yet made it into the literature. The Van Gogh Museum catalog comments that Bracquemond's late etchings present the birds as more monumental than did his earlier works. These are clearly monumental birds, whether they are pheasants or partridges (an ornithologist is needed).