Rodolphe BRESDIN

Among the dominant themes in Rodolphe Bresdin’s work are scenes of figures in fantastical landscapes, peasant interiors, small villages and Biblical subjects, all depicted with an abundance of detail. Such subjects as that of the present sheet – which, like most of the artist’s drawings, is drawn with a very fine pen in a rich black ink, also known as India ink, or encre de Chine – would have been familiar to the artist from his upbringing in a village near Montrelais on the banks of the river Loire. Bresdin himself lived a peripatetic life, changing his address every few months, and his highly detailed drawings of villages, houses, farms and inns must have seemed, at times, the fabric of a world removed from his own humble existence. 

Another version of this composition, of similar dimensions and likewise signed and dated 1865, was sold at auction in Germany in 2001. Of the same date is a closely related drawing of a Medieval Town with Horsemen, of identical dimensions to the present sheet and likewise on an embossed board, which was also formerly in the Mohlitz collection and recently sold at auction in France. An autograph version of the ex-Mohlitz Medieval Town with Horsemen, drawn on papier calque, is in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Several similar drawings of townscapes from the 1860s are known, such as The Church and the Port in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The present sheet is one of several drawings by Roldolphe Bresdin owned by the 20th century French engraver Emile Philippe Magadoux, known as Philippe Mohlitz (1941-2019), who created a number of fantastical prints.