19. Jules de Bruycker
(1870-1945)

Le Placement du Dragon (sur le Beffroi de Gand) Placing the Dragon (atop the Ghent Belfry)

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de Bruycker: Placing the Dragon

Le Placement du Dragon (sur le Beffroi de Gand) Placing the Dragon (atop the Ghent Belfry)

Etching, 1914, 368 x 230 mm., Le Roy 42, edition 120. Provenance: Dietrich & Co., Brussels (Lugt 311b). In 1913, in preparation for the World's Fair in De Bruycker's home town of Ghent (Gand), the renovated copper dragon was elevated back up to the pinnacle of the Ghent Belfry. In this whimsical historical scene, De Bruycker has placed himself on the scaffold in the foreground sketching what appears to be pending disaster. The pandemonium is accentuated by the multitude of birds having to vacate the belfry and the annoyance of the snorting dragon, who is being yanked forward by his tongue. Such bumbling incompetence is always more amusing in the safety of two-dimensionality. Fine impression with plate tone on simili-japon with good margins, titled, signed and numbered in pencil from the edition of 120.