Nicolas
François Regnault (1746–1810)
“The
Stolen Kiss” (aka “The Secret Kiss”; “Le Baiser à la Dérobée”), after the
painting (1787) of the same composition in reverse by Jean-Honoré Fragonard
(1732– 1806) and Marguerite Gérard (1761–1837)—Fragonard’s student and
sister-in-law (see https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Baiser_à_la_dérobée)—in
the collection of the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, published in Paris by
Regnault.
Hand-coloured
stipple etching and engraving on heavy wove paper, trimmed with a small margin
around the platemark on the top and sides and sightly within the platemark on
the lower edge.
Size:
(sheet) 43 x 51 cm; (image borderline) 35.6 x 45.9 cm.
Lettered
in plate below the image borderline: (centre) “LE BAISER A LA DEROBÉE./ Gravé
Par N. F. Regnault, d’Après le Tableau d’h. Fragonard, Peintre du Roi/ AParis
chez Regnault, Rue de Montmorency, No. 22.”
Henri
Béraldi and Roger Portalis (1882) in “Les G r a v e u r s du Dix-Huitième
Siècle”, Vol. 3, Part 1 (Paris, Damascéxe Morgand et Charles Fatout) offer the
following description of the printing process used by Regnault: (transl.) “a
very fine dotted process [recalling] the black manner [‘la manière noire’]” (p.
385).
See
the description of this print offered by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco:
https://www.famsf.org/artworks/le-baiser-a-la-derobee-the-stolen-kiss
.
Condition:
a strong and well-printed impression with age-toning and significant scattered
foxing.
I am
selling this amazingly fine coloured stipple engraving, published just one year
after the famous painting by Fragonard was completed, showing a young lady torn
between a clandestine kiss by
simultaneously leaning towards her lover, but with fear in her eyes and a long
restraint in her wardrobe holding her back from illicit dalliance, for the
total cost of AU$287 (currently US$191.83/EUR173.57/GBP152.79 at the time of
this listing) 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 beautiful portrayal of aristocratic intrigue
executed at the time when the French revolution was crumbling the very foundations
of polite society, 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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