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Saturday, 17 July 2021

Francesco Paolo Michetti’s etching, “L'Enfant au Panier”, c1875

Francesco Paolo Michetti (1851–1929)

“L'Enfant au Panier” (aka “Little Girl with a Basket”), c1875, printed in Paris by Alfred Cadart (1828–1875) and published as an insert between pages 290 and 291 (see https://archive.org/details/gazettedesbeauxa21pariuoft/page/n329/mode/2up) in the art periodical, “Gazette des Beaux-Arts”, vol. 21 (March 1880) that offers the following insight regarding this print:

(transl.) “…the plate we are publishing, both because of its small size, which allows it to enter our review, and because of its particular merit. It is due to a young Italian painter already greatly appreciated among us, because the painting [he] reproduces, the Little Girl with the Basket […] This etching is the first engraved by M. Michetti; we do not know of any other example of a painter who, at the first attempt, thus made himself master of the process. […] as has been said. Mr. Michetti was exceptionally happy.” (p. 289 [https://archive.org/details/gazettedesbeauxa21pariuoft/page/289/mode/2up]).

Etching (with drypoint?) on cream laid paper.

Size: (sheet) 28 x 18.5 cm; (plate) 24 x 16.1 cm; (image borderline) 20.1 x 12 cm.

Inscribed in plate within the image borderline with the artist’s signature at lower right.

Lettered in plate below the image borderline: (left) Paolo Michetti, del. et sc./ Gazette des Beaux-Arts.; (centre) “L'ENFANT AU PANIER”; (right) “Imp.Cadart.Paris.”

State v (of vi) with the publication details of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts.

The Rijksmuseum offers the following description of this print: (transl.) “A Roma girl with a basket on her arm in the woods” (http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.154844).

Condition: a richly inked, well-printed, near faultless impression in pristine condition with no tears, holes, folds, abrasions, stains, foxing or signs of handling.

I am selling this small gem of an etching that I understand is one of the artist’s first prints (or is certainly the first to reproduce one of his paintings)—note the marvellous transition of finely laid lines rendering the young girl’s face to the almost calligraphic strokes of what may to be drypoint describing the grass at her feet—for AU$322 (currently US$238.48/EUR201.97/GBP173.19 at the time of this listing) 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 remarkable etching showing the influence of Mariano Fortuny (a close friend of the artist) in the use of freely laid strokes that I see as aligned with the spirit of Impressionism, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold 









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