5. Félix Bracquemond
(1833-1914)

Rue Vivienne la Nuit (Rue Vivienne, Paris, at Night)

(click on image to print)
Rue Vivienne la Nuit

Rue Vivienne la Nuit (Rue Vivienne, Paris, at Night)

Etching and drypoint, ca. 1855-56, 137 x 92 mm., Béraldi 145, B. N. Inv. 90, Bouillon Ad 6. Here is a small, rare and uncelebrated print that shows Bracquemond in a completely new light and is years ahead of its time. Bouillon mentions that Bracquemond has taken the traditional idea of a night piece and applied it in a totally modern way to a specific time and place. But technically, the work is also startling. The lights in the lamps are produced by stopping-out or wiping and the stars are actually dug into the paper, apparently with the point of a knife. In addition, the plate is wiped to provide a variety of grey middle tones. This is Buhot twenty years before Buhot. The impression in Bouillon appears to be strongly contrasted black and white with little middle range. This one, on cream-toned laid china paper with full, large margins, is perhaps less inky black and more transparent, allowing a better glimpse of the shadowy figures on the street, and with wiped areas of varied grey delineating the different degrees of light falling on the ground, the street levels of the building and the upper stories. Superb print, unfortunately never published and printed in only a few impressions.