LOUIS-MARIN BONNET
1736 – Paris – 1793
----------------------------------------
La Jardiniere Fleuriste – c. 1773
Crayon-manner etching and engraving in sanguine after François Boucher (French, 1702 – 1770). Size of sheet: 41.5 x 29 cm. Lettered “No.49/La Jardiniere Fleuriste/Gravé par L.Bonnet d’ares le Dessein de feu Mr. Boucher Le Peintre du Roy/A Paris, chez Bonnet rue St.Jacques’. Framed.
Le Blanc 399, Herold 49, Jean-Richard 357 (III/III).
Fine impression of this rare print on laid paper with margins around the platemark; some flattened creases, soiling of paper on top edges, small, repaired small hole on the right side platemark.
Comparative impressions: Musée du Louvre – inv.no.19470 LR.
£950.- (framed)
Louis-Marin Bonnet after Boucher: La Jardiniere Fleuriste
This is a pendant to No.50, “La Sagesse et la Justice”. The print was announced in “L’Avant-Coureur” on 30th September 1771. The first state was before the number and with “Tiré du Cabinet de Mr Prault'; the second stage with the number and information of the artist and address of publication; the third state is in sanguine.
Bonnet first trained as a printmaker in the studio of Louis-Claude Le Grand, his sister’s husband. Then in 1756 he briefly worked with Jean-Charles François, where he observed the final stages of development of the new chalk-manner printing technique. About 1759 he spent some time in the shop of Gilles Demarteau, who was more than happy to get as much information about François’s methods as possible. Bonnet became Demarteau’s greatest rival, and likewise had a thriving business and produced a large number of chalk-manner prints, many of those after drawings by Boucher. Unlike Demarteau’s two colour technique, Bonnet added one more colour and was the only printmaker who knew how to make chalk-manner prints aux trois crayons (three chalks – red, black and white).