Félix Bracquemond’s etching, “Perdrix”, 1853

Félix Bracquemond (aka Joseph Auguste Félix Bracquemond) (1833–1914)

“Perdrix” (Partridges), 1853, printed in Paris by Auguste Delâtre (aka Auguste Marie Delâtre) (1822–1907) with scratch-inscribed printer’s address.

Etching printed on yellow chine collé, trimmed with a margin around the image borderline and backed with a support sheet providing wide margins.

Size: (support sheet) 39 x 43.5 cm; (sheet) 25 x 31.4 cm; (image borderline) 22.6 x 29.4 cm

Inscribed in plate within the image borderline: (upper right corner): “Félix Bracquemond/ inv. & fec”.

Lettered in plate below the image borderline: (centre) “Perdrix.”; (right [scratch lettered]) “Imp Delâtre rue de Bièvre 19 paris”.

State iii (of iv)

Beraldi 112 iii (Henri Béraldi 1885, “Les Graveurs du XIXe Siècle: Guide de l'Amateur d'Estampes Modernes: Bracquemond”, vol. III, Paris, Librairie L Conquet, pp. 49–50, cat. no. 112 [3]); Bouillon Ac 3.III (Jean-Paul Bouillon 1987, “Félix Bracquemond, le Réalisme Absolu: Oeuvre Gravé 1849–1859, Catalogue Raisonné”, Geneva, Éditions d'Art Albert Skira SA, pp. 84–85).

The British Museum offers the following description of this print: “Partridges in rolling landscape, some in flight. 1853 Etching” (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1924-0112-38). 

Condition: a strong impression with many small restorations (e.g., replenished corners and other areas of the margin and replenished small losses within the image). This is not a perfect impression. The sheet is trimmed with a margin around the image borderline and the title and has been laid onto a sheet of archival (millennium quality) washi paper providing support and wide margins.

I am selling this very rare etching that is seldom seen on the art market—Bouillon, in his catalogue raisonné for Bracquemond (1987), offers the following reason: “(transl.) it has been little exhibited, practically not commented on … explained by the fact that the plate was not published in the deliveries of the Société des Aquafortistes, but simply offered for purchase in the Almanac of 1865” (p. 84)—for the total cost of AU$312 (currently US$195.63/EUR201.40/GBP177.14 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 curiously interesting etching—to my eye this print reveals the influence of Japanese prints on Bracquemond in terms of his mix of an eye-level and somewhat flattened/stacked view of the partridges set against an elevated view of an undulating landscape stretching back into deep space—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