Henri RIVIÈRE: Les Balises, la Bouche, Chéruette et l’Anneau au crépuscule (Saint-Briac) - 1890

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Price: 14000 €

Woodcut printed in colours, 23 x 34,4 cm. Toudouze, 160-162.

Plate no.2 from the Paysages bretons [Breton landscapes] series, printed in 20 impressions from 5 woodblocks burnt after printing.

Impression in very good condition, stamped with the red monogram (Lugt 1362).

Superb impression  hand-printed by Rivière on old laid paper imported from Japan as he explained in his autobiography: "I made the colours myself, crushed them, sized them; fortunately I had been able to obtain from an importer several reams of a beautiful paper with a form, not glued, more than a hundred years old, which came from the liquidation of a factory in Tokyo; but I crushed and sized the colours myself, and with a pad of my own invention I printed the plates by hand, twenty impressions each. " (Henri Rivière, Les détours du chemin, Equinoxe, 2004, p. 65, our translation).

The woodcuts made by Rivière between 1890 and 1894, "gathered in two series, La mer, études de vagues [The sea, wave studies] and Paysages bretons, constitute the most innovative part of his work." (Valérie Sueur-Hermel, in Japon, Paris, Bretagne, Musée départemental breton, 2012, p. 36).