L'Homme à L'Âne (The Man with Donkey)
19th century
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Mount: 6 1/8 × 9 5/16 in. (15.6 × 23.7 cm) Plate: 1 3/8 × 2 3/4 in. (3.5 × 7 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The J. B. Neumann Collection, Gift of Dr. Franz H. Hirschland, 1952
Accession Number
52.508.39
Art Historical Context
**L'Homme à L'Âne (The Man Donkey)** Rodolphe Bresdin a visionary French artist of the 19th century1822–1885), crafted this intimate etching, capturing a humble scene of a man with his donkey. Created during an era when etching flourished as a medium for intricate, expressive prints, Bresdin's work exemplifies the technique's precision: acid bites into a metal plate to etch fine lines, allowing for extraordinary detail in small formats like this one's modest plate size of just 1⅜ × 2¾ inches. Bresdin, often overlooked in his time but revered by peers like Odilon Redon and Vincent van Gogh, ...
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...