40. Theodore Roussel
(1847-1926)
The Snow, My Front Garden, March 2,1909

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Roussel, The Snow

The Snow, My Front Garden, March 2,1909

Soft-ground etching and aquatint with stopping-out, 1909, Hausberg 85 iv/iv, 225 x 175 mm. Fine impression on laid japan paper with probably full margins, one of about 40 impressions of this state, 48 in all; a few minor, pale stains. The print is one of Roussel’s most original and, with its beautiful textural interplay, one of his most attractive. The technique is fascinating. The subject is etched in soft ground, various densities of aquatint are laid in for the sky, and the snow is expressed by stopping-out of areas of aquatint, leaving the natural tone of the bare paper. This is not a combination Roussel used very often, and nowhere as extensively as here, nor does it appear to be something he learned from his friend and mentor Whistler. Rather, it seems to have been inspired by the scene itself, an inventive solution to the problem of depicting white over black and grey.