French printmaker, painter and sculptor Ludovic Lepic joined the Société des Aquafortistes, one of the chief engines of the Etching Revival in France, in 1862, and devoted much of his career (from the 1870s onward) to the innovative technique of the ‘eau-forte mobile’ (changeable etching), which proved to be a decisive influence on the development of Degas’s monotypes.

The present work is a menu card designed by Lepic for his friend and fellow artist Giuseppe de Nittis (1846-1884), an Italian painter who settled permanently in Paris in 1868 and whose interest in modern-life subjects paralleled Lepic’s own. The print depicts a fishmonger setting up his stall against the backdrop of a harbour filled with boats. Its technique is more conventional than that of Lepic’s best-known prints. Although on a small scale, this fine impression offers a representative example of his draughtsmanship and delicate handling of the etching needle, as well as the note of humour which sometimes informs his work (in the form of the fishmonger’s eager-looking dog, at lower right).

Provenance : Arsène Bonafous-Murat, Paris, from whom purchased by Donato Esposito, December 2006

Inscription: Lepic

Inscription: A21266