La Turbie by Augusta Payne Rathbone

La Turbie by Augusta Payne Rathbone

La Turbie

Augusta Payne Rathbone

Title

La Turbie

 
Artist
Year
c. 1935  
Technique
etching & color aquatint 
Image Size
14 1/2 x 10 9/16" platemark, trimmed to platemark by the artist. 
Signature
pencil, within image in lower right 
Edition Size
artist's proof, edition around 10 
Annotations
 
Reference
 
Paper
cream wove 
State
published 
Publisher
artist 
Inventory ID
21395 
Price
SOLD
Description

While in Paris in 1927, Augusta Rathbone was introduced to printmaking and thereafter worked primarily in color aquatint combined with line etching. Rathbone, who had studied briefly with Bonnard, uses a freely drawn black etched line to capture rough shapes which are then filled with color, using aquatint. She worked with Monsieur Alfred Porcabeuf, a professional printer in Paris, who would prove her prepared plates. In the 1930s she traveled the French Riviera and her color palette adapted to the colorful villages throughout the region.

Rathbone produced twenty color aquatints of the French Riviera and about 1938 she joined forces with Juliet and Virginia Thompson to create the illustrated book French Riviera Villages, which was published that year by Mitchell Kennerly. Twelve of Rathbone's original color aquatints were reproduced mechanically by photography and then hand colored with pochoir. Juliet Thompson photographed the villages and Virginia Thompson wrote a history on each village. Rathbone's aquatints are a modernist homage to these ancient villages.

The image for "La Turbie" was not used in the book. The image is of the 'Trophy of the Alpes' constructed by the Roman emperor Julius Augustus to celebrate his victory over the Ligurian tribes of the area. La Turbie is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes region of southeastern France.