Dimanche en Bretagne
Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Dimanche en Bretagne, etching, 1939, signed in pencil lower left and inscribed “ep d’artite” lower right. Reference: Laboureur 543, second state (of three, but see discussion below). In very good condition, printed on a cream/tan wove paper, 7 1/2 x 5 7/8, the sheet 10 3/4 x 8 3/8 inches.
A fine lifetime impression of this rare work, the last etching printed by Laboureur before his final illness.
Sylvan Laboureur, in his catalog raisonne, incorrectly notes that the monogram between the trees was entered in a third state by a technician, and that some impressions of the second state (and all of the third) were posthumous. However, this proof, with Laboureur’s signature and notation, shows that the print was completed (with the monogram) by the artist, in the second state, and that this surely is the definitive state of the print. Impressions were printed posthumously for inclusion in the revue le Portique and hors texte for a volume of Illustrations of J.-E. Laboureur. The plate was eventually given to the Bibliotheque Nationale.
The subject matter is the river Bono, to the south of Auray (in Brittany, northwest France).