François Perrier, “Rest on the Flight into Egypt”, c.1629

François Perrier (aka Le Bourguignon) (1594–1649)

“Rest on the Flight into Egypt”, c.1629 (BM: 1609–49), a first state/lifetime impression published by Jean Leblond I (aka Jean Le Blond) (c.1590/94–1666) with royal privilege of the French Crown.

Alexandre-Pierre-François Robert-Dumesnil (1835) advises that the etching follows the design of a painting that may be seen in the church of Sainte-Elisabeth in Paris (see vol. 6, p. 164)—possibly Eglise Sainte Élisabeth de Hongrie (see https://www.patrimoine-histoire.fr/Patrimoine/Paris/Paris-Sainte-Elisabeth.htm), but I have been unable to find an image of this painting..

Etching on laid paper, trimmed along the platemark and backed with a support sheet.

Size: (sheet) 29 x 38.4 cm; (image borderline) 25.9 x 38.4 cm.

Lettered in plate below the image borderline: (left) “Franciscus Perrier pinxit et sculp./ burg.”; (centre) “J’ prolem committe vadis, tibi seruiet æquor,/ Pectoraq[ue] his scopulis asperiora fugis.”; (right) “JBlondus excudit cum privilegio Regis Christianissi[m]i”.

State i (of ii) before the erasure of “JBlondus excudit” and the addition of publication details for “Pétri Mariette” (Pierre Mariette I) (c.1603–1657).

Robert-Dumesnil 5.1 (Alexandre-Pierre-François Robert-Dumesnil 1835, “Le peintre-graveur français, ou Catalogue raisonné des estampes gravées par les peintres et les dessinateurs de l'école française: ouvrage faisant suite au Peintre-graveur de M. Bartsch”, vol. 6, pp. 164–65, cat. no. 5, [state] 1).

The British Museum offers the following description of this print: “The flight into Egypt: Holy Family on a river bank, with St Joseph sitting with Christ in his arms, and Virgin led by an angel to a small boat” (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_X-6-24).

See also the descriptions of this print offered by the RISD Museum and the Rijksmuseum: https://risdmuseum.org/art-design/collection/rest-flight-egypt-66147 &  http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.162362.

Condition: a strong and well-printed impression showing no sign of wear to the printing plage, trimmed around the platemark. There is a pencil inscription at lower left, otherwise, the print is in an excellent condition for its large size and considerable age with no tears, holes, folds, abrasions or significant stains and is laid onto a support of archival (millennium quality) washi paper providing wide margins.

I am selling this superb lifetime impression of an important etching from the early 1600s by a major printmaker who is famous for his series of etchings of antique sculptures (see https://archive.org/details/segmentanobilium00perr/page/n12/mode/thumb), for AU$647 in total (currently US$425.77/EUR392.73/GBP336.91 at the time of posting 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 masterwork of etching by François Perrier, 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