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The Technique of Etching 1880

Maxime Lalanne (1822-1886) Etchings

Lalanne, who studied in Paris in the studio of Jean Gigoux, made his Salon début in 1852. He was an important player in the etching revival in France and was a founding member in 1862 of the Société des Aquafortistes along with Auguste Delatre, Cadart, Ribot and Bracquemond. In total Lalanne created over one hundred and fifty fine etchings. His illustrated manual Traité de la gravure à l'eau-forte was published in 1866 and translated into English in 1880. He produced a second technical manual, Le Fusain , in 1869.

Lalanne provided drawings for L'Illustration nouvelle , the Société des Aquafortistes's journal, from 1868 to 1881. His primary source of income was creating prints that were then published in French art journals. He made prints after artists such as Corot and Constant Troyon for French periodicals including L'Artiste and the Gazette des beaux-arts . He also produced illustrations for books, e.g. Chez Victor Hugo (1864). Lalanne also published two documents of his own, instruction manuals on etching and sketching done in 1866 and 1869 respectively.

Joseph Pennell greatly admired Lalanne's quick, incisive pen and ink landscapes and townscapes, even comparing them favourably against those of Titian. He declared that Lalanne's etching of Richmond and the Thames , which appeared in the Portfolio , was 'the most exquisite example of his work I have seen in any English periodical'.

Lalanne exhibited in Britain at the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts between 1882 and 1884.

Up for auction are several original plates from the book The Technique of Etching. This is an English translation of Lalanne's book, Traité de la gravure à l'eauforte. It was published by Sampson Low in 1880. All of the plates are original etchings by Lalanne. He created them to illustrate the etching technique. The gallery image is Fribourg, Switzerland. Associated with this etching is a description of the 5 step etching process used to create the image's different tonal qualities. It's a gorgeous image with a fountain in the foreground and the steeples of Fribourg in the background. T are also two states of Plate 1. One is very light and the other is quite dark. Lalanne included these two states of this image to demonstrate the impact of deeper etching (that is longer immersion of the plate in the acid) has on the mood of the image. The lighter version appears flat and is much less intense than the darker image, even though the image and composition is exactly the same. Plate 7 seems to be illustrating how blurring of the surface can create an impressionistic effect. Plate 8 is after a painting by Deville, All of the images except Fribourg are signed M L in the plate.

The etchings are in very good condition. The paper is supple with no creases. One edge is irregular as expected for plates removed from a book. T are no tears (except one marginal tear in the darker version of Plate 1 which is only about 1 cm long and ends well outside the plate), burns, stains, toning (except Plate 7 which shows some paper toning), or areas of paper loss or foxing. The plate marks vary in size from a small of 5 x 3" to a large of 7 x 4.5" and the pages are 9.5 x 7".

The etchings are offered at a very low opening price and no reserve. Good luck with your bidding. Also, please check out my other auctions. I will be listing a lot of art from the 19th and 20th centuries over the next few weeks. Take advantage of my inventory reduction.

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