Gallery of prints for sale

Saturday 25 June 2022

Alfred Prunaire’s coloured wood engraving, “The Print Collector”, c1880, after Honoré Daumier


Alfred Prunaire (aka Alphonse Alfred Prunaire; Léon-Alphonse-Alfred Prunaire) (1837–1912)

“The Print Collector” (aka “L'Amateur d'Estampes”), c1880 (1860–1902), hand-coloured wood-engraving after Honoré Daumier’s (1808–1879) famous painting “L'Amateur d'Estampes”, c1860, in the Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris (inv. no. PPP39).

Wood engraving with hand-colouring on China paper with small margins around the image borderline and backed with a support sheet.

Size: (support sheet) 41.7 x 35.7 cm; (sheet) 32 x 26.1 cm; (image borderline) 29.8 x 23.9  cm.

Signed in plate at lower right corner: “h. Daumier”.

Paris Musées offer the following description of the portrayed scene and insights regarding its background:

(Transl.) “In a shop whose walls are covered with works, a man wearing a top hat bends down to consult prints contained in a portfolio of drawings placed on a board. A rolled up newspaper sticks out of his left pocket.

The theme of the print lover, dealt with on several occasions by Daumier, illustrates the emergence, in Balzac's France, of a new type of collector from the petty bourgeoisie. The founding of the Société des aquafortistes in 1861 corresponded to a renewed interest in original prints, which were more accessible than paintings to amateurs with modest incomes” (https://www.parismuseescollections.paris.fr/en/node/226665#infos-secondaires-suggestions-meme-siecle).

See also the descriptions of this print offered by the Rijksmuseum and the British Museum: http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.623969;  https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1906-0418-2.

Condition: a strong and near faultless impression with small margins in an excellent condition with no tears, holes, folds, abrasions, stains or foxing and laid upon a support of archival (millennium quality) washi paper providing wide margins.

I am selling this luminously beautiful and large wood engraving after Daumier’s famous—possibly even iconic—painting, exemplifying the surge of interest in prints in France during the late nineteenth century, for AU$259 (currently US$180.05/EUR170.52/GBP146.74 at the time of posting this print) 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 superb engraving capturing the spirit of a passionate print collector—note the roll of paper in the collector’s pocket which is possibly his newly acquired prints rather than his newspaper—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 









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