Paysage à Bouquet d'Arbres - Crépuscule. Landscape with a Copse

Henri Harpignies, 1819-1916
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Paysage à Bouquet d'Arbres - Crépuscule. Landscape with a Copse - Twilight

Original etching in black ink. 1850. Signed and dated in the plate. Probably printed at the studio of Beillet, Paris 1850. From a very small edition. Rare.
Ref: Béraldi - Graveurs du XIXe Siècle Harpignies no 24

A really beautiful impression, printed with a delicate film of ink tone to capture the twilight effect. On pale cream chine appliqué on a cream wove backing sheet as issued. Generally excellent condition; a faint sign of an old mount line, one tiny paper fleck. Full margins; sheet 11 1/4 x 15 7/8ins. Plate: 6 7/8 x 9 1/4ins (175x235mm)

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One of the most significant European artistic revolutions of the mid 19th century was the change in the approach to landscape as an art form. The change had begun at the end of the previous century; until then landscape had largely been seen as a background setting for other themes. However during the 19th century it was to become a major theme in its own right. In France the revolution which had begun with the romantics came to a first climax in the art of the great landscape movements of the mid century. For the painters of this era the depiction of landscape was focussed on expressing the true open-air sensations of light, of atmosphere and of weather.

Henri-Joseph Harpignies was amongst the most gifted French 'plein-air' (open-air) landscape painters of his era. He had a superlative feel for the expression of light. A pupil of Achard he was also a profound admirer of Corot and of his interpretations of dappled filtered sunshine. As well as a painter Harpignies was also an extremely enthusiastic and highly gifted etcher from the earliest part of his career onwards. He was already exhibiting his etchings in the late 1840's. His whole oeuvre consists of some 35 etchings, the finest of which date from the years before 1865. The rarest and most delicately worked compositions were drawn around 1850. Only issued in very small editions, and with a marvellous quality of misty light, such works as 'Paysage au Bouquets d'Arbres', above, are little masterpieces of the art of landscape.