Manet Assis - Tourné à Gauche. Portrait of Edouard Manet Seated - Turned to the Left. by Edgar Degas, 1834-1917

Edgar Degas, 1834-1917
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Manet Assis - Tourné à Gauche. Portrait of Edouard Manet Seated - Turned to the Left.

Original etching in black ink with plate-tone. 1864/65. Impression from the plate with the cancellation lines. From the edition of 18 impressions printed for Frank Perls,1959. Inscribed in pencil: Bon pour 18 épreuves - Authorised for 18 impressions. (The plate is now in a private collection - no further impressions will be printed). Only 9 lifetime impressions before cancellation are known.
Ref: Delteil - Degas Peintre-Graveur 15. Reed-Shapiro - The Painter as Printmaker no 17 - third state as cancelled.

Very fine impression of this issue. On old (c.1900) cream wove paper. Excellent condition. Full large margins. Sheet: 16 3/4 x 12 1/4ins. Plate: 6 3/4 x 4 3/4ins. (171x120mm)

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The series of three portraits of Manet (of which two are shown here in later impressions) are probably the most famous etchings of Degas's first period. Degas was profoundly influenced by Manet's paintings of the early 1860's, by their realism and modernity and by the way that they confront the viewer. It was this sense of modernity and realism that Degas sought to express in his etched portraits, the medium itself adding to the directness of the imagery.

The portraits were all worked up on the etching plates from drawings done either in Manet's or Degas's studios. There was probably a small time lapse between the two portraits above as the complexity of Degas's treatment of the plate has definitely developed between the two.

So few impressions are known from these etchings prior to cancellation that good impressions from the post-cancellation printings still show very much of the complexity and beauty of Degas's handling of the line on the plate.