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The Upper Part of a Door (Le haut d'un battant de la porte)
The Upper Part of a Door (Le haut d'un battant de la porte)
The Upper Part of a Door (Le haut d'un battant de la porte)

The Upper Part of a Door (Le haut d'un battant de la porte)

Maker (French, 1833-1914)
Date1865
MediumEtching on wove paper
DimensionsPlate: 12 x 15-3/4 in. (30.5 x 40 cm)
Sheet: 13-3/16 x 17 in. (33.5 x 43.2 cm)
Credit LineUniversity Transfer from Max Epstein Archive, Gift of the Carnegie Corporation, 1927
Collections
Object number1967.116.71
Status
Not on view
Description

One of the leading etchers in France, Félix Bracquemond completed The Upper Part of a Door, his most celebrated print, when he was just nineteen years old. According to the reminiscences of Bracquemond’s son Pierre, the artist drew the motif directly from nature, having encountered three dead birds and one bat nailed to the door of a farmhouse in Villers-Cotterêts in northern France. This impression is taken from the 1865 reissue of The Upper Part of a Door , originally published in 1852.