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[Moldavian Interior]
Original copperplate worked in etching, signed and dated in reverse in the subject Rodolphe Bresdin 1865. Plate: 200 x 129 mm; weight: 280 g. Subject: 167 x 111 mm. The plate is beveled (with the corners rounded), steel-faced and varnished. Excellent condition.
The copperplate for Intérieur moldave hadn’t been located in any known collection or mentioned in any reference work to date. Very few plates by Rodolphe Bresdin have survived. Three plates are in the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Four plates are in American public collections: New York Public Library; Brooklyn Museum; The Baltimore Museum of Art; The Art Institute of Chicago. Van Gelder only listed ten other remaining plates in private French or American collections; one is cancelled and five in bad condition. Bresdin himself damaged some of his plates, etching them also on the back or sometimes etching another image over the previously etched one. The plate for Le Cours d’eau (VG 144) etched over La Cité lointaine (VG 131), which had been varnished, was sold in 1997 by Audap-Picard-Solanet & Associés at Drouot, Paris.
Dirk van Gelder describes two states of the etching Intérieur moldave (VG 93). He mentions only one proof of the first state and a few proofs of the lithography transferred from etching (“report sur pierre”) by P. Rivière in Toulouse (Van Gelder pp. 60-61). In the first state, Rodophe Bresdin 1859 is inscribed to the left of the picture of the Virgin and siempre el mismo (“always the same”) to the right. In the second (final) state, Bresdin etched over the former signature and date and added (bottom, middle) Rodolphe Bresdin 1865 amen (letters etched in relief, right way round on the plate but in reverse on the proof). He also added or redrew a few utensils and figures. In particular, a shelf with a box, a demi-john, woven baskets and even a well-hidden cat replaced the row of food supplies hanging from the roof in the first state.
The copperplate comes with a proof of the second state printed on heavy cream wove paper, the margins of which have been folded in order to provide a protective sleeve to the plate. Subject: 165 x 111 mm; sheet: 315 x 222 mm. [Further information on our website]
References: Dirk Van Gelder, Rodolphe Bresdin, Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre gravé, Martinus Nijhoff, La Haye, Pays-Bas, 1976 ; Maxime Préaud, Rodolphe Bresdin, 1822-1885, Robinson graveur, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2000.
