Auguste Lepère – Path Along The Marsh Of The Vendee, Etching On Japanese Paper, 1914

Auguste Lepère (1849-1918)
Chemin au marais vendéeen (Saint Jean de Monts), 1914
Path in the Vendée marsh (Saint-Jean-de-Monts)
etching on very thin Japanese paper
Plate: 148 x 241 mm
Sheet: 170 x 234 mm
Catalogue raisonné of the engraved work: no. 415
Signed in the plate at the top right: AL
Handwritten note, at the bottom right in pencil: "à moi" ("mine")
Artist's mark, at the bottom right in red ink (Lugt 141)

Sold in its mat

A slight tear in the paper, in the margin, at the bottom center; no impact on the plate

* * *
Extract from the Catalogue raisonné of the engraved work of Auguste Lepère
A. Lotz-Brissonneau – GM Texier-Bernier – J. Letheve

415 – Path through the Vendée marsh (Saint-Jean-de-Monts)
The path follows the winding contours of a marsh, passing by cottages: one in the foreground, on the left, another in the middle ground, and the third further on. On the horizon, the silhouettes of three mills can be seen. In the center of the image, a peasant woman holds back a small child running towards some ducks, whom a little girl is also trying to catch.
Signed AL engraved in the upper right corner – 1914.

Edition:
1st state: 8 proofs
2nd final state, with the monogram in the upper right corner: 35 proofs.

With a print like this, we are as close as possible to Lepère's studio practice. He printed it using his own press and he kept this impression for his own collection, for his own contemplation : proof of this lies in the rather moving handwritten note in pencil in the lower right corner, which reads "mine." This note is accompanied by his mark in red ink (L. 141), which he affixed to his own prints.

A proof of this final state is held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York: the type of paper used for that impression is not specified.