29. Auguste Lepère
(1849-1918)

Départ pour Greenwich (Leaving for Greenwich)

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Lepère, Départ pour Greenwich

Départ pour Greenwich (Leaving for Greenwich)

Etching, drypoint, and lavis, 1891, Lotz-Brissonneau 30 iv/iv, 120 x 169 mm. Fine impression, presumably from the edition published by the Gazette des Beaux-Arts but possibly before as the drypoint is still visible, on laid paper with good margins. The scene, as French as it looks, is on the Thames in England. Technically, the variations in tone of the aquatint or, more properly here, the lavis (tone produced by acid directly on the plate with no ground) is quite astonishing in delineating not just light and shade but textures and even pipe smoke. The plate got a wide distribution and probably did much to disseminate Lepère’s reputation as an etcher, familiar though he was as a wood engraver.

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