Artist: Anne Claude Philippe de Tubières, comte de Caylus (1692-1765) and Nicolas Lesueur (1690-1764)
Title: Des pêcheurs retirant leurs filets (Fishermen pulling in their nets), plate 65 from Recueil d’estampes d’après les plus beaux tableaux et d’après les plus beaux desseins qui sont en France, (called the Recueil Crozat)
Date: 1729/40
School: French, XVIIIth-century
Medium: etching and two-colour woodcuts
Dimensions: 303 x 435mm (plate), 440 x 435mm (sheet)
Watermark: double-headed eagle (grand Aigle)
Inscriptions/marks: in the plate lower border <<DES PECHEURS RETIRANT LEURS FILETS./D’après le dessein de Jules Romain, qui est dans le Cabinet de M.r Crozat, gravé en cuivre par M.r de Comte de C …./Et en bois par Nicolas Le Sueur>>, in the plate lower right <65>
Condition: Fine impression on laid paper with clear grand Aigle watermark
Description: Etched by Caylus and printed with two woodblocks cut by Lesueur after a drawing by Giulio Romano. When the publication was announced in the Mercure de France in May 1728, it was stated that the prints would be printed on Colombier (dovecote) paper, but that if the subscriber wanted their prints on large grand Aigle paper they would pay an additional cost (Mercure de France, May 1728, p. 1008).
Reference: IFF, XVIIIe siècle, vol. 4, Caylus 371.
Provenance: The Print Room, Museum Street, London, 1994