Washed Up Ships
1864
Medium
Pen and black ink on brown wove card
Dimensions
Primary support: 17.1 × 11.1 cm (6 3/4 × 4 3/8 in.); Secondary support: 31.9 × 23.8 cm (12 9/16 × 9 3/8 in.)
Classification
prints and drawing
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
198866
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
In addition to being an accomplished draughtsman, Bresdin was a proficient printmaker. In its intense detail, and with its clear tonal contrasts, this linear drawing recalls his etchings. Unlike many of his works, however, it bears a date and signature. A friend of writers and poets, Bresdin worked frequently as an illustrator. Although it does not seem that this work was destined for a particular project, much of his imagery borders on the fantastic. The buildings on the shoreline seem to lean ...
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...