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LOUIS-MARIN BONNET
Tête de Flore
*
Tête de femme
.
Two color pastel- and chalk-manner etchings
with engraving, from eight plates and three
plates respectively, 1769 and circa 1771
respectively.
Tête de Flore:
400x325 mm;
15
3
/
4
x13 inches, trimmed on or just outside
the plate mark, inside the plate mark lower
margin with the removal of the etched
inscription;
Tête de femme
: 392x348 mm;
15
5
/
8
x13
5
/
8
inches, narrow margins. Both very
good impressions of these extremely scarce,
French 18th-century color prints.
Both of these color prints were based on
pastel portraits by François Boucher (1703-
1770).
Tête de Flore
represents Boucher’s
seventeen-year-old daughter, Marie-Emilie;
Tête de femme
is thought to portray Boucher’s
eldest daughter, Jean-ElisabethVictoire.
According to Ittmann, “The
Tête de femme
was first issued as a pastel-manner print to
form a pair with the
Tête de Flore
. . .The difficulties that Bonnet encountered in printing
the
Tête de Flore
with eight plates no doubt prompted him to attempt his new print [
Tête
de femme
] with the more manageable number of five,” (
Regency to Empire, French Printmaking
1715-1814
, Minneapolis, 1984, page 198).Though in fact very few impressions of
Tête de
femme
are known using all five plates and most extant impressions, like the current work,
were printed by Bonnet from three color plates in addition to the black etched plate.
Hérold 192 and 59.
[5,000/8,000]