Le Broc by Augusta Payne Rathbone

Le Broc by Augusta Payne Rathbone

Le Broc

Augusta Payne Rathbone

Please call us at 707-546-7352 or email artannex@aol.com to purchase this item.
Title

Le Broc

 
Artist
Year
c. 1935  
Technique
etching & color aquatint 
Image Size
10 5/8 x 14 1/2" platemark 
Signature
pencil, lower right 
Edition Size
artist's proof 
Annotations
 
Reference
a color pochoir reproduces this etching in French Riviera Villages published by Mitchell Kennerley, 1938 
Paper
ivory wove 
State
published 
Publisher
artist 
Inventory ID
21393 
Price
$900.00 
Description

The medieval village of Le Broc is located in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France, about four miles from Nice. The municipality is perched on a rocky outcrop that overlooks the rivers Var and Esteron, as well as Broc lake (Lac du Broc). Seen in the right half of the composition is the steeple of Ste-Marie-Madeleine, an early 16th-century church. The quaint fishing village is home to around 1,500 residents now; however, when Augusta Rathbone created vibrant etching and color aquatint, the population was only around 300.

Here, Rathbone captures the high contast of pale stone structures drenched in the bright sun of southeastern France, the jumble of their angular roofs suggesting an architectural closeness no longer found in contemporary civil design.

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 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 around 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.

 
Please call us at 707-546-7352 or email artannex@aol.com to purchase this item.