37. Félix Buhot
1847-1898
L'Orage, after Constable (The Storm)

(click on image to print)
L'Orage, after Constable

L'Orage, after Constable (The Storm)

Etching, drypoint and roulette, 150 x 226 mm., Bourcard/Goodfriend 145 ii/vii. A fine, rich impression, with inky plate edges, of this rare early state, printed on laid paper with good margins, a strip of old brown paper tape along the top edge of the sheet. Early in his career, Buhot made etchings after the painting of various other artists to illustrate books and catalogs, basically commercial work to help earn a living. This print, however, after a painting by John Constable, is something quite different: a tribute of a sort, and an interpretation. With no attempt to replicate the feeling of an oil painting (and in reverse of the original), Buhot produces an almost abstract arrangement of print textures (etching, drypoint burr, roulette) and patterns of light and dark, subduing the realism of the scene and yet making the landscape seem oddly more French than English. A comparison with David Lucas' mezzotint after the same painting produces disbelief that the two prints could stem from the same source.