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The painter-etcher

Just before WWI, the demand for original etchings grew steadily, and Brouet started to etch more and more original etchings of a much more personal character, in smaller formats. His favorite scenery was the popular areas in Paris, with their manual workers (cat. 15 to 61), peddlers, rag pickers (cat. 71 à 98), or picturesque areas in small towns in the countryside (cat. 111 à 132). These etchings remained quite confidential at the time, even though some of them were edited by Georges Petit and Diétrich, like the large colour etchings. They were exhibited only at the (more or less) annual exhibition of the Société des peintres-graveurs⁽ⁱ⁾.

Around 1914, he added new subjects : nudes, dancers (cat. 141 à 162) and circus scenes (cat. 163 to 165). He gains in reputation when two articles about his work appear in the art press, in February and June 1914 ^(i,ii). However the war breaks out immediately afterwards, imposing a period of hardship (cat. 171 to 189) and it is only after the market had fully recovered around 1920 that his renown grew steadily through biographical articles and personal exibitions.next