FRANÇOIS BONVIN

1817 Paris – 1887 Saint-Germain-en-Laye

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Le Graveur (effet de lampe) – 1861

Etching and drypoint on laid paper. Signed and dated on plate. From “Premiere suite de dix eaux-fortes’. Published by Alfred Cadart in 1871.

IFF 9.II; Beraldi II:3; Stijnman, 2012 (ill.fig.82).

Excellent impression on full sheet. Framed.

François Bonvin: Le Graveur

Focused on the introspection and privacy of etching, this self-portrait shows the artist alone in a darkened interior. A screen, used to evenly diffuse light, separates him from the room’s only lamp. His forward posture and intense focus suggest that etching is a solitary and meditative practice.

The young Bonvin started drawing at an early age. His potential was recognized by a friend of the family, who paid for him to attend a school for drawing instruction at age eleven. Bonvin attended the Ecole de Dessin in Paris from 1828 until 1830, when his father apprenticed him to a printer. Bonvin later studied at the Academie Suisse but was mostly self-taught as an artist.

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