Rodolphe Bresdin
The Flight into Egypt
Estimate
15,000 - 25,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Rodolphe Bresdin
(Montrelais 1822 – 1885 Sèvres)
The Flight into Egypt
Pen and brown ink and wash, with some blue-green wash and touches of watercolor;
bears inscription and numbering in pencil, verso: LGB 10
150 by 122 mm; 5⅞ by 4¾ in.
By descent in the family of the artist;
with Arsène Bonafous-Murat, Paris, Rodolphe Bresdin 1822-1885, 1992, no. 105;
with Jean-Luc Baroni Ltd., London, 2013,
where acquired by Diane A. Nixon
Given his talents as an engraver there can be little surprise that many of Bresdin’s drawings have a strong linear quality to them. The Nixon drawing is therefore a bit of an outlier in this regard as besides the more structured elements of penwork found in the architectural details of the present work, there are also far freer passages of brown wash and watercolor.
The subjects of The Flight into Egypt and The Rest on the Flight into Egypt are ones that Bresdin explored in depth, with both the pen and the burin. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, has in its collection a small (90 by 137 mm) pen and black ink drawing of The Flight to Egypt1 while the Art Institute of Chicago owns a lifetime impression of Bredin’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt with Saddled Donkey.2 Both of these works illustrate the artist’s varied approach to the treatment of subject and technique, and when coupled with the Nixon drawing show Bresdin to be a highly individual and talented graphic artist.
1.New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 65.639.3
2.Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, inv. no. 1934.448
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