Louis-Marin BONNET

(1736 – Paris – 1793)

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The Milk Woman & The Woman Ta King Coffee - 1774

A pair of pastel manner engravings enhanced with applied gold leaf. Framed in 19th century gilt wooden frames.

Size of sheets: c.28.6 x 23.3 cm.

Hérold 294 and 295 (ill.fig.37); Grasselli 30 and 31.

Exquisite impressions of this famous pair, both trimmed to the image or just outside it.

This pair is the first among so-called les estampes anglaises (the English prints) produced by Bonnet between 1774 and 1777. As well as this was the first example of gold-printing by Bonnet.

Louis-Marin Bonnet: The Milk Woman & The Woman Taking Coffee

This pair is the first among so-called les estampes anglaises (the English prints) produced by Bonnet between 1774 and 1777. As well as this was the first example of gold-printing by Bonnet.

They were mentioned in the Journal de politique et de literature on 25 December 1774 (p.279-280): ‘Mr Marin, Engraver in London, has just invented a new genre of Prints which imitates the miniature, & which produces the most pleasant effect...These are ovals enclosed in a border which is part of the Print, & which is enriched with gold, as well as the Print itself.’

“In 1774, Bonnet began to produce a unique series of prints that featured frames printed with gold leaf. Because the use of gold leaf was closely regulated and only certain artisans, such as book-binders and furniture makers, were permitted to work with it, Bonnet invented an elaborate fiction: he pretended that his prints were actually made by an English printmaker named “L.Marin” and published by a London printseller named Vivares…” (Margaret Morgan Grasselli, Colorful impressions: the printmaking revolution in eighteenth-century France. Washington D.C., 2003 p.82)

Louis-Marin Bonnet: The Milk Woman & The Woman Taking Coffee

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