Branches
1801 to 1825
Medium
etching
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1943.3.2106
Art Historical Context
"Branches" is a captivating etching by Rodolphedin, a French artist renowned for his intricate and imaginative prints, created sometime between 1801 and1825. Part of the National Gallery of's esteemed Rosenwald Collection in the Prints department (CG-E), this work showcases the etching medium's potential for exquisite detail. In etching, an artist draws lines into a wax-coated metal plate, which acid then bites into, allowing for delicate, controlled lines that capture texture and form with remarkable precision—a technique Bresdin elevated to poetic heights. Bresdin, active in the Romantic er...
About the Artist
Rodolphe Bresdin · 1822–1885
Rodolphe Bresdin (1822–1885) was a visionary French draughtsman, engraver, and lithographer whose fantastical imagery captured the empathy of rural poverty and the wild exuberance of the imagination. Born on August 12, 1822, in Montrelais near Le Fresne-sur-Loire in Brittany, he grew up in the Breton countryside amid its bardic folklore traditions before a family dispute left him homeless in Paris...