Gilles-Antoine Demarteau (1750 - 1802)

Details
Gilles-Antoine Demarteau (1750 - 1802)

Jeune Fille à la Rose, after François Boucher (Leymarie 563; Inventaire 18e siècle, VI, p. 483, no. 563, as Demarteau l'ainé)
chalk-manner etching with engraving printed in colours, (black, greenish-blue and red), 1777, a fine impression, the colours very fresh, published by G.-A. Demarteau, Paris, 1777, trimmed inside the platemark, retaining all five borderlines as well as the artists' names, address and number, two or three very soft creases at the edges, some slight foxing, noticeable mainly on the reverse, generally in very good condition
S. 310 x 722 mm.
Provenance
Madame de V...; Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 11-12 June 1928, lot 61, 'Demarteau l'Ainé (G.) (sic.) Buste de Jeune Fille, une rose au corsage. D'après F. Boucher, No. 563. Pièce capitale de l'oeuvre de G. Demarteau. Splendide épreuve, d'une qualité exceptionnelle, très rare à rencontrer dans cet état: elle est imprimée à l'imitation du dessin, à plusieurs crayon, avec une superbe planche de blanc, sur fond teinté vert' (repr. pl. VII; 54,000 F.)

Lot Essay

The description of this print in the Petit sale of 1928 misattributes the print to Gilles-Antoine's uncle, Demarteau l'aîné and incorrectly describes the medium referring to 'une superbe planche de blanc'. Demarteau l'aîné's formula for the white ink of his prints was a well-guarded secret which he did not share presumably with his nephew. Gilles-Antoine's use of white, which was learnt from his uncle, was created by the selective burnishing of the overall tone plate allowing the white of the paper to emerge and serve as a colour. The medium and its lack of a white ink, and the fact that this print was announced in the Mercure de France in March 1777, some seven months after Demarteau l'aîné's death, supports the correct attribution to Gilles-Antoine given in Regency to Empire French Printmaking 1715-1814, Baltimore and Minneapolis, 1985, pp. 222-3, no. 74 (repr.)

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