Harris Schrank Fine Prints

Charles Dufresne (1876-1938), Chasseurs de Lion (The Lion Hunters), etching, aquatint and drypoint, 1921, signed in pencil lower right and numbered (40/40) lower left [also signed in the plate lower center]. Reference: Thomas Dufresne 39. In very good condition, with full margins, on an ivory/tan laid Arches paper, with a (partial) Arches watermark. 11 3/4 x 14 7/8k, the sheet 14 5/8 x 21 3/4 inches.

Published by Editions Sagot, with the blindstamp of Edmund Sagot Lugt 2254) bottom margin.

A fine rich impression, printed in a brownish/black ink, with substantial drypoint burr.

The Lion Hunters is a tour de force of printmaking. Dufresne skillfully utilizes a range of techniques including etching, drypoint, aquatint and perhaps even soft-ground etching.

Dufresne’s stunning composition in The Lion Hunters of course shows the influence of both cubism and Parisian School – after all he was born in France and studied at the Edole des Beaux Arts – but it also shows the influence of the years he spent in Africa, and his origins as part of a seafaring family. In 1910 he won the Prix de l’Afrique du Nord and then spent two years in Algeria, which stirred his interest in exoticism and lyricism.

In The Lion Hunters a bourgeois figure in a suit, lower right, appears to aim his rifle at a lion coming upon a fallen native; another hunter sits on a horse running through the center of the composition, and at the upper right a lioness looks on, ready to pounce.