Pour le Bapteme de Madeleine
Jacques Villon (1875-1963), Pour le Bapteme de Madeleine, 1900, aquatint , etching, printed in soft blue ink, signed in pencil lower right and numbered 7/10. On laid paper. Reference: Genestet and Pouillon 45, only state. [Also signed in the plate “G Duchamp”, fully titled, dated “Juin 1900”, and with the name Madeleine added on the box cover (?) lower right.] In very good condition, the full sheet with margins (indications of inking in margins, as typical of a trial proof). 7 1/8 x 5 5/8, the sheet 14 1/4 x 11 inches.
A fine, delicately and lightly printed impression of this great rarity (the picture above shows a pink not in the actual print). Although an edition of 50 impressions is indicated, this print is only rarely encountered, and is here numbered as in an edition of 10.
In 1970 Lucien Goldschmidt (Jacques Villon, A Collection of Graphic Work 1896-1913 in Rare or Unique Impressions) catalogued an impression of “Pour le Bapteme de Madeleine” as the frontispiece of a menu, presumably for the celebration of Madeleine’s (Villon’s young sister) Baptism.
At this early point in his career (he was 25) Villon had begun experimenting with aquatint; this proof shows that he had achieved mastery by this time.