[Louise above a tub drying her foot]
Drypoint, 215 x 234 mm. Pétridès undescribed, Roger-Marx 26.
Superb impression printed with burr on Ingres watermarked paper, signed in pencil suzanne Valadon and dated 1908.
In perfect condition. Full uncut margins (sheet: 320 x 485 mm).
Extremely rare impression. Paul Pétridès was not aware of this print. Claude Roger-Marx mentions it in the draft catalog of Suzanne Valadon's prints accompanying the album 18 planches originales de Suzanne Valadon gravées de 1895 à 1910, published in June 1932. Louise au tub s'essuyant le pied is not one of the eighteen plates that were reprinted on Rives paper on Daragnès printing press. Roger-Marx, who mentions the title in a list of eight prints added to the list of reprinted plates, specifies that its zinc plate has been lost. The mention "Eau-forte" (etching) seems erroneous to us. On the other hand, the dimensions (21 x 23) do correspond to our impression.
Louise appears in several of Suzanne Valadon's prints, including two soft ground etchings dating from her early printmaking efforts in 1895: Louise nue sur le canapé (Louise naked on the sofa, Pétridès E4) and Louise étendue [Louise lying], published in Le Rêve et l'Idée (Roger-Marx 20). Suzanne Valadon learned soft ground etching around 1895 with Degas who encouraged her. She would later also use drypoint and etching.
Despite the diversity of techniques used by Valadon, her engraved work presents a great unity: "Of the subjects of her plates, quite close to each other, Valadon herself decided the titles. The setting? Any ordinary room where familiar models – mothers and grandmothers, children, servants – go about doing housework. [...] Servants dry themselves, comb their hair, stretch before Suzanne, as before Renoir, voluntary models who have been made grander by her, for she always excels in describing the form not in pieces but in its brilliant unity." (Claude Roger-Marx, "L'œuvre gravé de Suzanne Valadon" in 18 planches originales de Suzanne Valadon gravées de 1895 à 1910, translated by us). Roger-Marx underlines Suzanne Valadon's rigour and sobriety in the treatment of bath scenes. Without idealizing the bodies, without falling into sentimentality or pathos, she gives an account of the body in its daily activity, alternately wearying or stimulating: "it is always through the stoicism of the line that she is sure to move us". The drypoint, both refined and nervous, of Louise au tub s’essuyant le pied illustrates this judgment perfectly.