Rodolphe Bresdin

Bresdin's use of drawing was often preparatory for his prints, but as this sheet and several related works demonstrate, his method was not always linear. This depiction of a Flemish interior is related to a print of the same title dated 1856 in the first state, with the sixth and last state produced between 1876 and 1880 (see Van Gelder vol. 2, no. 86). A summary drawing on tracing paper, which reverses the print composition, is in the Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Mass. (1959:3; Van Gelder, vol. 2, 45). Van Gelder notes that it may have been traced from an early etched state, creating an independent variant of the composition. The Morgan's pen drawing, unknown to Van Gelder and dated by the artist 1857, is larger than the print and repeats the composition of the print except for some of the more minor details. These works were followed by a less densely detailed variant of the composition in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, dated 1860 (see Van Gelder, vol. 1, fig. 62). There is also an unlocated tracing of the Paris sheet.
As the title suggests, this rustic interior scene was inspired by seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish domestic views, especially the work of Adriaen van Ostade. The scene was published as a frontispiece in the "Revue fantaisiste" on 15 May 1861, and Bresdin continued to work on the plate and produce new states of the print.