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Identification and Creation

Object Number
7.2007
People
Félix Hilaire Buhot, French (Valognes (Manche), France 1847 - 1898 Paris)
Title
The Funeral of the Burin (Frontispiece)
Other Titles
Original Language Title: L'Enterrement du burin
Series/Book Title: L'Illustration nouvelle
Classification
Prints
Work Type
print
Date
1877
Culture
French
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/165406

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Etching and drypoint with roulette and aquatint on off-white laid paper
Technique
Etching, drypoint and aquatint
Dimensions
plate: 34.6 × 27.5 cm (13 5/8 × 10 13/16 in.)
sheet: 49.4 × 32.5 cm (19 7/16 × 12 13/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: lower left, in plate: fx buhot inv. + scu.
  • inscription: in plate, right: L'ILLUSTRATION NOUVELLE / PARIS / 1877
  • inscription: in plate, left: 1876
  • watermark: lower left, partial: An
  • inscription: verso, lower right, graphite: finix
  • inscription: verso, lower right, graphite: A00449

State, Edition, Standard Reference Number

State
v/v
Standard Reference Number
B. / G. 124

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Anonymous Loan
Object Number
7.2007
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Commentary
This is the commercially published state of one of Buhot's less well-known etchings. Now he is more famous for his whimsical compositions, uniquely wiped with colored inks and printed on exotic papers. This composition is indeed whimsical, but the content, the triumph of etching over engraving, is a distinctly late-19th-century theme that has little resonance today.

In 1877 Buhot and "L'Illustration nouvelle" were celebrating the artistic dominance of the Etching Revival, which had relegated all other graphic processes to the limbo of commercialism. By this date, both metal and wood engraving were not "original" print processes, and woodcut and lithography had yet to be revived as artistic means of expression, as they would be in the 1890, when etching came to seem too fluent a medium. Nine years earlier, however, in 1868, it commissioned its frontispiece from Félix Bracquemond, another leading artist of the French Etching Revival.

This composition was selected by Frederick Keppel, the leading American dealer in etchings in the late 19th century, for a presentation before The Union Club of New York in 1890 or 1891.

Exhibition History

  • 32Q: 2700 Impressionism, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/31/2022 - 07/14/2022

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Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu