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Émile Cardon, critique d'art

Maker

(artist)
1823-1891

(printmaker)
1823-1891

Title

Émile Cardon, critique d'art

Date of Production

1876

Medium

etching

Dimensions

Height: 49.3 cm (sheet)
Width: 35.9 cm (sheet)

Accession Number

G.2017.XX.5

Mode of Acquisition

Donato Esposito, gift, 2017

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords




Related Works

Émile Cardon, critique d'art

Label Text

Théodule Ribot (1823-1891) was primarily self-taught as a painter, earning a living as a sign painter and gilder before turning seriously to painting in the late 1850s. His reputation rests on his sober realist still-lifes and genre scenes, as well as portraits and a handful of religious subjects, characterised by close observation and strong chiaroscuro that were informed by his admiration for Ribera and Rembrandt, as well as by his practice of working at night by candlelight.

This etching, which dates from the end of Ribot’s career (which was cut short by illness in 1878), depicts the art critic Émile Cardon (1824-1899), dressed in a suit and soft cap and holding a cigarette, against a dark background. The dramatic contrast between light and dark emphasises the sitter’s face and hand as the primary sources of light. The rendering of the face conveys a vivid sense of the sitter’s irascible personality (he is best remembered today for his scathing critiques of Impressionism, contemporaneous with this etching).

Provenance

Turquin (French, 19th century), to whom presented by artist; Roger Marx (French,1859–1913), Lugt 2229; Henri Marie Petiet (French, 1894–1980), Lugt 5031; his sale, Ader Nordmann, Paris, 20 October 2016, lot 305 (625€ [with commission] to Donato Esposito

Inscriptions

Inscription: Recto, lower left corner within plate mark, printed : t. Ribot

Inscription: Recto, lower right, below platemark, handwritten in brown ink : 3ième état 7ième épreuve/T. Ribot//à Monsieur Turquin [La ...?]/son bien dévoué serviteur/T Ribot

Collector's mark: Recto, lower right, R. M X (enclosed in an oval)

Collector's mark: Verso, lower right, black ink, H. M. P (enclosed in an oval)

Inscription: Verso, lower right, handwritten in pencil : 268 / 655036

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