Aigle Royal

Joseph Hecht

As noted in the Tonneau-Ryckelynck/Plumart catalogue raisonne of Hecht's works, identifying the edition size and date of his early engravings is often a difficult task as he rarely included that information on the prints themselves. In the case of this impression, there is no signature, either. This might be explained by the fact that he usually only printed and signed his proofs before sending the plate to a printing house. This impression is watermarked with the Arches logo, and since Hecht printed almost exclusively on Montval, this suggests it may be from one of those campaigns.

The catalogue references a Chalcographie du Louvre number for this print (13956), which is written in pencil on this impression (lower right sheet corner). At the time, the Louvre employed as its print curator Paul Angoulvent, who focused exclusively on engravings. This impression may have been purchased directly from the artist, though when that was remains unclear.

At the time of this engraving, Hecht was helping develop Atelier 17 with Stanley William Hayter and many of his works were printed there. It was seeing Hecht's engravings that piqued Hayter's interest in the medium, which Hayter felt had been abandoned as a fine print method. Hecht's images overwhelmingly included animals and birds and, following "Aigle Royal," he engraved a portfolio of 11 prints titled Animaux.