54. Félix Buhot
1847-1898
La Tiare (The Crown)

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La Tiare

La Tiare (The Crown)

Etching, with drypoint, aquatint and spit-bite, 1888, 392 x 323 mm., Bourcard/Goodfriend 173 iv/iv. Provenance: Buhot family (triangular stamp). Very fine impression in brown-black ink on laid paper with good margins, the large red owl stamp at the lower left of the image. This late work is remarkable, even for Buhot, for its harmonious blending of different techniques. The crown itself is in pure etching, the fabric in drypoint, and the background made up of aquatints of different grains and light drypoint, the whole blending mysteriously with images of Notre Dame and St. Peter's on either side of the crown, and angels in the sky (the angel at the bottom center has the face of Jean Buhot). The tiara was made by the goldsmith and designer Froment-Meurice for Pope Leon XIII on the occasion of his jubilee. Buhot, who had done earlier, more conventional prints after Froment-Meurice, as well as etching his portrait, was asked by the latter to use the tiara as the subject of a print.