The French painter and printmaker Norbert Goeneutte, although trained in the studio of Isidore Pils at the École des Beaux-Arts, left academic art behind in 1875 when he moved to Montmartre, where he befriended Renoir and Marcellin Desboutin (the latter of whom introduced him to etching and drypoint). Although closely associated with Manet, Renoir and Degas, and sharing their preference for modern-life subjects and informal compositions, he never exhibited with the Impressionists and preferred to send his work to the official Salon.

The present work, which dates from the end of Goeneutte’s relatively brief career, depicts a milliner at work, with an unfinished hat on a stand and a milliner’s dummy facing away at right. The sense of quiet and tranquillity typical of Goeneutte’s work pervades the composition, which showcases the range of his etching technique, from the rapid, sketchy rendering of the shadows on the dummy and the milliner’s hands, which appear deliberately unfinished, to the careful description of her head and dress.

Provenance: Galerie Blanchet-Pelletier, Jouy sur Eure, from whom purchased at the Paris Print Fair, April 2008 [stock number SA2157].

Signature: : recto & upper right (within image) :: Goeneutte

Inscription: verso & top edge : pencil : EPREUVE // Livraison 11-12 dec 1895 // (photo 299 cat) // GOENEUTTE Norbert // La Modiste (13 ? 22- Knyf 21) // Eau forte 140 x 177 // Epreuve sur vergé publiée après la mort de l’artiste

Inscription: verso & lower left : pencil :: ESPOSITO 5047 //

Stamp: verso & upper right : black ink :: 66 //