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Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
JAMES JACQUES TISSOT Octobre.
Etching and drypoint on cream laid paper, 1878. 548x278 mm; 21 1/2x11 inches, full margins. Edition of approximately 100. Signed in pencil, lower left. With the artist's red monogram ink stamp (Lugt 1545, lower right recto). A superb, richly-inked impression with strong contrasts.
Tissot (1836-1902) was a successful French society artist; his artworks portray fashionable women and 19th century life that embody Victorian and Belle Époque/Gilded Age aesthetics. The child of Catholic textile merchants, he moved to Paris from his native Nantes to study art in 1856 and trained with protégés of Ingres: Louis Lamothe and Hippolyte Faldrin. He also met Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas and James A. M. Whistler, whom he maintained ties with throughout his life. Tissot was exiled to London in 1871 after his involvement with the Paris Commune in the Franco-Prussian War. In London, Tissot's portraits of woman and 19th century life quickly gained popularity and he became among the most successful, renowned artists of his day. Tissot would take inspiration from many of Whistler's etchings and paintings, he often borrowed from the same bank of subjects (like views of the Thames), and would also follow suit when Whistler become influenced by Japanese prints.
Tissot made his first etchings while studying in Paris--epicenter of the later 19th-century etching revival--in the 1860s and revisited the medium again in 1875-1885. As a printmaker, Tissot primarily used the medium to skillfully reproduce his own paintings (rather than sell the reproductive rights to his work to other publishers and printers). The market for reproductive prints in England was exceedingly strong during this time (prompted by the concurrent etching revival in England, supported by the English Etching Club) and Tissot found the sale of his etchings a highly lucrative segment of his artistic output. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Tissot did not experiment with etching to make original works but instead only used it as a way of replicating (or revisiting) his painted subjects. Throughout the production of his prints he maintained a consistent approach to etching that employed meticulous detail and rich tonality; the result was a cohesive, focused oeuvre.
The etching Octobre is based on the same-title painting from 1877, now in the Montreal Museum of Art, and follows many of the standard influences in Tissots work from the 1870s--including Japanese prints and photography. More specifically, the composition with a single full figure is reminiscent of Japanese Ukiyo-e paintings of the Kaigetsudo School of the early 18th-century. Tissot also frequently used photography to help provide compositional details that lent an immediacy to some of his compositions. The woman depicted is young Irish divorcée Mrs. Kathleen Newton, Tissot's frequent model and companion. The two met in 1875 and from 1876 until her death from consumption in 1882 they lived together in Tissot's home in St. John's Wood--Tissot would describe these years as the happiest of his life. After Mrs. Newton's death in 1882, Tissot moved back to Paris and began producing artwork focused on religious subject matter and he spent the last two years of his life in an Abbey in Buillon, France. Wentworth 33.
