Léon Le Goaebe de Bellée’s etching, “Matin d'Octobre”, 1866

Léon Le Goaebe de Bellée (aka Léon Le Gæësbe de Bellée) (1846–1891)

"Matin d'Octobre" (October Morning), 1866, frontis illustration to the poem, "Matin d'Octobre", dedicated to Jules Breton (aka Jules Adolphe Aimé Louis Breton) (1827–1906),  by Camille-André Lemoyne (1822–1907), printed by Auguste Delâtre (1822–1907) and published by Firmin Didot Frères Fils (1790–1876) in “Les Charmeuses”, 1866, Paris.

Etching with drypoint and plate tone on laid paper backed with a support sheet

Size: (sheet) 24.3 x 16.3 cm; (plate) 16.3 x 11.2 cm; (image borderline) 15.4 x 11.2 cm

There are no inscriptions or lettered publication details suggesting that this impression is a proof state, but I have not seen the original publication to confirm whether lettered text was added for publication.

Condition: faultless impression in pristine condition (i.e. there are no tears, holes, folds, abrasions, stains, foxing or signs of handling) backed with a support sheet of archival (millennium quality) washi paper.

I am selling this delicate and poetically intimate nature study by one of the peripheral artist of the Barbizon School (in the sense that he made studies like this in the forest of Fontainebleau and published his prints in Frédérick Henriet’s (1876) “Le Paysagiste aux champs, croquis d'après nature”) for AU$148 (currently US$108.97/EUR93.60/GBP83.65 at the time of posting this print) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world (but not, of course, any import duties/taxes imposed by some countries).

If you are interested in purchasing this delicate etching revealing the artist’s close observation of tangled weedy scrub at the edge of a steam, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

As a fontis illustration for Camille-André Lemoyne’s poem, “Matin d'Octobre" dedicated to the 19^th century French Realist painter of countryside, Jules Breton, I thought I would extract a few critical lines from Lemoyne’s poem that might help to contextualise this nature study. (Note: for those who may be appalled to read my “butchering” of Lemoyne’s poem in an English translation, the full text in French is available at Poésie Française et Francophone d’Hier & d’Aujourdhui: https://www.poemes.co/matin-d039octobre.html)

“The sun rose red like an orb on a forest pond …comes up lighting the mist, and … gives golden leaves. And on the green carpets of the big clearing … the fine grass that grows … on the cool edge of the ponds … A little girl (she is seven or eight years old) …leading her red cow, She already knows the fine grass that grows lively and drunken, in the fall, on the cool edge of the ponds.”