Description

Armand Rassenfosse Etching ‘Nue’ – from around 1928

Armand Rassenfosse (1862-1934) Etching

Original dry point etching printed in fade brown

Edition number not known

Etching is not framed but handsigned left hand top corner

Size : 194 x 132 mm

Info on Armand Rassenfosse :

Armand Rassenfosse was a largely self-taught Belgian graphic artist, book illustrator and painter. His masterwork was a set of illustrations for Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal.

Rassenfosse was always interested in improved techniques. He only began to etch at the age of twenty-seven, but later became distinguished for his mastery of the different skills and techniques of engraving. Around 1890 Rassenfosse developed a new recipe for a special ink for etching, an ink that can be dissolved to expose the metal of the plate. Felicien Rops had been an early adopter of soft ground etching, using several types of paper in a single plate. Rassenfosse worked with him to develop a special soft ground mixture for reworking intaglio plates to which crayon drawings had been transferred photomechanically. The formula, which they called “Ropsenfosse”, was finalized in 1892. Later, Rassenfosse may have been the first to make color prints from soft ground, using two or more plates.

Around 1923 he developed a new technique that eliminated the problem of printing a mirror image. He drew on smooth paper with the special ink, then laid the paper over the plate and ran it through the press to transfer the ink to the plate. He offset the drawing, powdered the plate with zinc oxide or whiting and coated the plate with a very thin layer of varnish. When treated with acid the effect was to create crayon-like lines.

Etching is in absolute mint condition