La Blanchisseuse
Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), La Blanchisseuse, 1922, engraving, signed in pencil and annotated “d’etat”. Sylvain Laboureur 229, second state of three, before the edition of 72. In good condition, with full margins (slight soiling at right margin edge), on a wove Van Gelder Zonen paper, with their watermark, 9 3/4 x 7 1/4, the sheet 14 x 11 1/2 inches, archival mounting.
A fine impression of this early state. In the third state (the state pictured in the catalogue raisonne) cross hatching and additional lines were added in various places, but of course the structure of the composition is quite intact in this fine and rare earlier state. There were seven numbered proofs of the second state plus a trial proof; this is the trial proof.
At this stage of his career Laboureur had developed the unique and individualistic interpretation of cubism that was to be so influential for several generations of European and then American artists, and of course he had also mastered the engraving technique – a difficult and time consuming printmaking method which complements his cubist idiom perfectly in La Blanchisseuse.
$2500