The Distant City
1868
Medium
Etching on tan chine
Dimensions
Image: 9.7 × 18.1 cm (3 7/8 × 7 3/16 in.); Sheet: 12.7 × 20.8 cm (5 × 8 1/4 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
27797
Art Historical Context
Welcome to the Art Institute of Chicago's Prints and Drawings collection, where Rodolphe Bresdin's *The Distant City* (1868) invites you into a dreamlike vista. This intimate etching, measuring just 9.7 × 18.1 cm, captures Bresdin's mastery of fantastical landscapes during the late Romantic era in France. Born in 1822, Bresdin was a reclusive visionary artist whose intricate works blended meticulous detail with imaginative reverie, influencing later Symbolists like Odilon Redon. Crafted as an etching on tan chine—a technique where delicate Asian paper is collé (glued) to a sturdy sheet for en...
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...