Félix BUHOT: Illustrations for Les Lettres de mon moulin by Daudet, 1879

SOLD

Etching, aquatint and tools, each about 175 x 115 mm. Bourcard & Goodfriend 109 to 113 (B. & G. 109, 110 and 112, 4th state (of 6); B. & G. 111 and 113, 5th state (of 7)).

Rare complete series of 5 plates, before erasing of the symphonics margins and before the plates were reduced. Edition of 33 copies.

This series contains:

- Titre : Lettres de mon moulin [Title: Letters from my Windmill]
- La Diligence de Beaucaire [The Coach from Beaucaire]
- Le Secret du Maître Cornille [The Secret of Master Cornille the Miller]
- Le Curé de Cucugnan [The Priest in Cucugnan]
- Les Vieux [Old Folks]

Very fine impressions printed on japan laid paper. A few pale foxmarks. Full margins (sheets: each about 305 x 210 mm). With a folder on which are pasted an old label from a catalogue and print dealer Marcel Lecomte’s ex-libris.

To Buhot, these prints were not just illustrations, but worked as an extension to the text. Regarding the publication of Manet's illustrations for the book Le Fleuve [The River] by Charles Cros in 1874, Buhot would say: “these sketches will gush out naturally from the text, as if from the pen of the writer, but modified by another creative genius.”

On this topic, J.-L. Dufresne mentions that Buhot used to write literary stories in his youth, and he would illustrate these stories with sketches. According to Dufresne, this habit resulted in the creation of symphonic margins: “Félix Buhot had well-developed literary tastes and the taste for writing prompted him to compose literary whimsies as he was still a teenager. He would illustrate these with sketches. In these illustrated literary attempts we can see the origin of the symphonic margin […]. » (Jean-Luc Dufresne, Valérie Sueur-Hermel, Alison McQueen, Félix Buhot, peintre graveur entre Romantisme et Impressionnisme, p. 112).