Louis Leroy’s etching, “Une Avalure, Baie des Trépassés”, 1854

Louis Leroy (aka Louis Joseph Leroy) 1812–1885)

“Une Avalure, Baie des Trépassés”—the Baie des Trépassés, or Bay of the Dead, is a bay on Cap Sizun on the west coast of Finistère, in Brittany (France), purportedly where “dead druids were ferried from here to be buried on the island of Sein” (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baie_des_Tr%C3%A9pass%C3%A9s),1854.

Etching with dot-roulette on buff coloured chine collé on heavy wove paper, trimmed with a small margin around the image borderline and backed with a support sheet.

Size: (sheet) 64.8 x 50.8 cm; (image borderline) 61 x 47.2 cm.

Lettered in plate below the image borderline: (centre) “LOUIS-LEROY, A-f, 1854/ UNE AVALURE. (Baie des Trépassés.)”

State ii (of ii) with the body of a drowned woman of the first state replaced with shipwreck debris (Beraldi: “Second état: la femme noyée a été supprimée”).

Beraldi 48 (Henri Beraldi 1889, “Les Graveurs du XIX Siecle”, Paris, Librairie L. Conquet, vol. 9, p.158, cat. no. 48 [https://archive.org/details/lesgraveursdu19e09berauoft/page/158/mode/2up]).   

Interestingly, Beraldi offers the following insight regarding Louis Leroy’s large etchings: (transl.) “Louis Leroy tended to excessive dimensions, where even the most skilled etchers feel uncomfortable” and in a footnote to his discussion, Beraldi offers the following marvellous assessment of Leroy from the Goncourt brothers: (transl.) “Leroy, a tall dark man with a big voice: he is the enemy of priests, emperors, kings and romantics, and hides, under the appearance of truculence and physical ferocity, a perfectly good childhood and quite “prud'hommesque” [honourable?] ideas. (Journal des Goncourt) (p. 156 [https://archive.org/details/lesgraveursdu19e09berauoft/page/156/mode/2up]).  

See also the description of this print offered by the Louvre collections: https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl020531369.

Condition: a richly inked, strong and well-printed impression trimmed with a small margin around the image borderline and laid onto a support of archival (millennium quality) washi paper. There are restored tears and marks in the margins, otherwise, the sheet is in a good condition for its large size with no significant stains or foxing.

I am selling this huge masterwork of etching that is rarely seen on the art market, by the artist who famously gave the Impressionist school of artists their name in his article in “Le Charivari” (April 1874), “L’Exposition des Impressionnistes” (see https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG35602), for the total cost of AU$324 (currently US$216.56/EUR195.94/GBP172.49 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 this grand-scale etching showing figures in a rocky cove with shipwreck flotsam—note that in the state before this, the body of a drowned woman featured in the foreground but is replaced here with broken timber—please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.