Harris Schrank Fine Prints

Jean-Emile Laboureur (1877-1943), Petite Images de la Guerre Sur le Front Britannique, Portfolio of 9 engravings, 1916, with the signature in pencil on the justification sheet, and numbered (95), from the total edition of 120; there were also about 30 proofs of earlier states and 15 in this state not in the edition.  Reference: Laboureur 144-152, fourth state (of 4). In good condition, the cover of the portfolio worn but the prints and inside sheets in very good condition. The portfolio includes a title page which reads in part: “Neuf gravures au burin de J.-E. Laboureur precedees d’une Lettre sur les spectacles de la Guerre, de Roger Allard. A Paris, de ‘imprimerie d’A. Vernant, 6 rue Emile Dubois.” Each print is about 7 x 5 1/2 inches, on a sheet 11 x 8 3/4. Each impression is printed on a double sheet, which, when folded, is 11 x 8 3/4 inches.

Fine impressions, in excellent condition.

For the show The Cubist Print, 1981, Burr Wallen wrote: “The plates represent evolved versions of the artist’s slender, elongated figures with long necks and stylized poses in the matter of Parmigianino. It is possible that Laboureur may have been inspired by Winslow Homer’s Campaign Sketches, a portfolio of lithographs published in Boston in 1863 that take a similarly casual approach to camp life during the Civil War. One cannot fail to be impressed by the consummate precision of his fine engraved lines,possibly executed with the help of a magnifying glass. A rich variety of hatching and cross-hatching grw from the artist’s study of old master engravings…” It seems too that Laboureur was influenced by the  Mannerist old master engravings he studied in the years before the Great War; here he melds Mannerist and Cubist idioms to create his own modernist aesthetic.

We show only four of the set of 9 engravings, but of course pictures of all the prints are available on request.