JAMES
TISSOT R.E.
Nantes 1836 – 1902 Abbey of Bouillon
Tissot
settled in London in 1871, taking up
printmaking in 1875. Most of his etching
was carried out in the following seven
years in which he lived in the city,
before his return to France in 1882.
Portrait
of Miss L… (Il faut qu’une porte soit ouverte ou fermée)
Portrait of Miss L... (A door should be open or shut)
Béraldi 16; Wentworth 23
363 x 205 mm
Drypoint, 1876.
The plate signed and dated. Additionally
stamped with Tissot’s
‘red’ monogram (Lugt 1545 – ‘stamped by the artist on selected proofs’).
On laid paper. Very faintly mount-stained.
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The
oil painting on which this drypoint is based,
in reverse, was painted the same year and
exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in London
in 1877, as A Portrait, lent by the artist.
It was Tissot himself who gave the drypoint
its title and subtitle, in the catalogue
he published of his prints in 1886.
It has been assumed that ‘Miss L…’ was a model and that Tissot painted the picture as
a specimen to attract commissions.
The
subtitle Il faut qu’une porte soit ouverte
ou fermée was presumably suggested by
the short play of that name by Alfred de Musset
and the ‘proverb’ delivered therein
by the Marquise.
In
a Drouot auction catalogue of 1903 the model
in the print is identified as a Miss Lloyd.
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