Old Housea at Amiens, Auguste Lepère, etching. This is in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in DC, which has a high resolution downloadable and zoomable image file. For some reason, they don’t list the etching’s physical size. My guess from the size of the needle marks would be around 5×7″ (13 x 18 cm) or so.
Louis-Auguste Lepère, a French paintinter and printmaker active in the late 19th and early 20the century, was a prolific printmaker, producing etchings, wood engravings and lithographs.
For me this etching just radiates visual charm. At first glance, it looks straightforward enough, but when we look closer, almost every line is wavering or curved. Look at how delightfully loose and casual his hatching is.
Interestingly, his light lines on the cathedral in the distance — used to indicate atmospheric perspective — are straighter than their darker foreground counterparts. Even the vertical lines used to make tone on the cathedral are straighter than those in the set-back house in the middle ground (images above, second from the bottom).
The proportions, structural components and perspective are all solid, but the free spplication of his line gives the print the feeling of a casual sketch.
