Study of Six Heads and a Dog is a beautiful black and white etching with drypoint interventions on paper, realized ...

Study of Six Heads and a Dog is a beautiful black and white etching with drypoint interventions on paper, realized at the end of the XVIII century by the French artist Jean-Jacques de Boissieu (Lyon, 1736 - 1810). Signed on plate on the lower right margin “De Boissieu”. This old master’s original print with lifetime impressions is in very good conditions, except for some signs of the passing time, a little fold on the left margin, and some sporadic minor stains and light foxing along the margins that do not affect the images. Six portraits of men and a profile of a dog, etched with an incredible draftsmanship, are drawn in different scales and with different degrees of finish, acquiring the dignity of seven different artworks all together with the same passion and effort. Jean-Jacques de Boissieu (Lyon, 1736 -1810) was a French artist who studied at the École de Dessin in Lyon, but he was mostly self-taught. His earliest prints were realized between 1758 and 1764. When he went to Italy in the retinue of the ambassador and Duc de la Rochefoucauld d’Enville, he had a lifechanging encounter: he met Voltaire and entered the world of luminaries, and had the opportunity of realizing some plates for Diderot-d’Alembert’s Encyclopèdie. He then continued to produce prints in Lyon: many etchings of the Roman and Dutch countryside, as well as the French countryside around Lyon, earning a reputation as the last representative exponent of the older etching tradition.
30 x 23.5