Drawing on Japan
Ceramics designed by the artist Félix Bracquemond pioneered the use of motifs drawn from Japanese art in 19th-century French decorative arts. Larry Simms publishes here two extraordinary overlooked porcelain services by Bracquemond that add greatly to our understanding of his career.
Larry Simms, Monday, 25th August 2008
Notes
Acknowledgments
I want enthusiastically to thank four decorative arts scholars who generously provided information, suggestions and encouragement for this essay: Martin Eidelberg; Laurens and Yoland d’Albis; and Donna Corbin, Assistant Curator of European Decorative Arts, Philadelphia Museum of Art. Their friendship and help made this article possible.
1 The Treize grâces japonaises sheet measures 30.5 x 37.3 cm. A comparative Service Rousseau etching, Papillons et poissons (Beraldi 545) with images of butterflies and fish measures 25 x 34.7cm.
2 The title Treize grâces japonaises appears in pencil on the matting of this print, card-catalogued in the Bibliothèque Nationale’s Department des Estampes as Ef 411, t.IX, no. 304. However, in the official listing of prints in the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale, the print is catalogued as only treize japonaises; see Jean Laran and Jean Adhémar, Inventaire des fonds français après 1800, Bibliothèque Nationale, department des Estampes, Paris, 1942, vol. III, p. 376. The print is catalogued with Bracquemond prints from 1870. The print has acquisition no. 5684, date of entry ‘10 Janvier 1895’ described in a lot with four other etchings for ceramics as ‘Modèles de céramique. 5 pièces,’ purchase from W. T. Bouillon along with 59 other pieces by Bracquemond. The print is not signed or dated. Although listed in the inventory of prints in the Bibliothèque Nationale with sufficient documentation to assure that this is an etching by Bracquemond, this etching, for an unknown reason, is not listed in Henri Beraldi, Les Graveurs du XIXe siècle, iii Bracquemond, Paris, 1885.
3 The geisha with the open parasol in the Bracquemond etching (Fig. 1) is almost identical in reverse to the geisha from Hokusai’s Gashiki, p. 37 (Fig. 5). The geisha directly above the one with an open parasol in the Bracquemond etching (Fig. 1) is almost identical in reverse to the illustration of a geisha from Hokusai’s Manga, vol XII, p. 24. I have, as of yet, not been able to identify the other Japanese prints from which Bracquemond borrowed or was inspired for his other 11 geisha images.
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