Study for the woodcut 'Bassin des Tuileries'

c. 1898

Study for the woodcut 'Bassin des Tuileries', c. 1898. Auguste Louis Lepère (French, 1849–1918). Watercolor, gouache, and black crayon on tan heavy weight wove paper; sheet: 27.9 x 14.6 cm (11 x 5 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Muriel Butkin 2019.66 The printmaker Auguste Lepère is credited with reviving the woodcut at a time when it had fallen out of popularity in late 19th-century France. Lepère carefully sketched each aspect of his compositions—which often depicted Parisian life—before translating them to print. The young girl seen in this drawing figured in the foreground of an image depicting the Tuileries garden on a clear autumn day. In the related finished print, the young girl seen here appears next to the Tuileries’s pond, which is filled with toy boats (a practice that continues today).