Mortimer L. Menpes (1855-1938) Watercolor "marshal Ferrand Of Pont Aven" Brittany

Watercolor signed lower right, "Maréchal Ferrand de Pont Aven", dimensions 21x16cm at sight and 42x37cm with the frame. This is the original of a watercolor reproduced in the book "Brittany" published by Menpes in 1904, page 136 in the Pont Aven chapter. Mortimer Luddington Menpes, British painter, engraver and illustrator began his artistic training at the School of Art in London in 1878 and exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy in 1880. He regularly exhibited his paintings and engravings there for the next 20 years. Menpes went to Brittany for the first time in 1880, notably to Pont Aven where he met James Whistler with whom he became friends. They shared an apartment in London upon their return and Whistler guided Menpes' beginnings in engraving and introduced him to Japonism. Menpes became a major figure in the revival of printmaking in England, producing numerous drypoints and engravings. He developed a new technique for reproducing his watercolors in color using photography, which was used in books that the painter, a great traveler, published in the early 1900s with the collaboration of his daughter Dorothy (Whistler's goddaughter). His works on India and Japan, China, and the children of the world were very successful, as was the one on Brittany.