Auguste Brouet - About the sitehome

This site is mainly a catalogue raisonné of the original etchings in black of Auguste Brouet. The catalogue has originally been written in french, and partly translated into english, so that for more detail you can refer to the French version. This site also features a short biography of the artist, and a blog, where I regularly publish details on the life and work of the artist. The blog is mostly in French, although some contributions are in English when the subject calls for it.

The catalogue raisonné

The catalogue features 350 records, describing as many etchings. In these records you will find the print name(s) and size, creation date, states and edition size. The Boutitie(i) catalogue number is mentioned if relevant. This includes the extension of the Boutitie catalogue by Henri Petiet. Also mentioned are some exhibitions where the print was displayed, and the public collections where it can be found. In the French version the record also includes a short description of the print and a brief comment with some noteworthy details. As an illustration of the structure of the records see e.g. the Two Thieves (Ba 26) or in French Les Deux Larrons (Ba 26) .

The records can be accessed in three different ways :

  1. through a graphical index ordered by catalogue number,
  2. through a graphical index ordered by date,
  3. through a search tool scanning full text, print size or catalogue number, either Boutitie (B.) or the present catalogue (Barthel (Ba.)).

Links usually open up through single clicks, except the thumbnails in the graphical indices which require double clicks.

The biography

This biographical summary is based on scattered elements, to wit: a dozen paper articles (sometimes contradictory), the small book by Raymond Hesse(ii) (not always accurate I think) and the official records. In addition, minor additional elements can be gathered from a few extent letters. A more detailed account of Brouet's life and how it relates to the practice of etching in the first half of the XXth century is being given by installments in the blog, mostly in French.

The sources

This work relies on multiple sources. Among the major ones :

  1. the Boutitie catalogue(i) (cited as B.)
  2. the Boston Public Library collection (abbreviated as BPL)
  3. the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BN)
  4. the Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique (KBR)
  5. the graphic collection of Universität Osnabrück (UO)
  6. the catalogs and web sites of print dealers and auction houses, and especially the Henri Petiet (HMP) collection
  7. exhibition catalogs : Peintres-Graveurs (from 1906 to 1942, PGF) ; exhibition at galerie Barbazange (march 1922, EB) ; exhibition at Genève (jan. 1923, EG), with an additional list of the prints available for purchase (EG C) ; exhibition at galerie Hodebert (1927, EH) ; Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (1935, BA) ; Exposition Internationale (1937, EI); exhibition at galerie Charpentier (1937, EC) ; exhibition at at Ris-Orangis (1988, ER)
  8. the list of the plates purchased by the Chalcographie du Louvre in 1932
For the biographical sources, thanks are due to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Bibliothèque Forney, the Bibliothèque Doucet (now INHA), the Bibliothèque des Musées de France, the Archives de Paris, the Etat-Civil du XVIIIème arrondissement.
  1. Gaston Boutitie, Catalogue de l'Oeuvre Gravé d'Auguste Brouet d'après la collection Bonabeau,
    précédé d'une étude de Gustave Geffroy, Paris 1923.
  2. Raymond Hesse, Auguste Brouet, in the series Les artistes du livre, Babou, 1930.
2001-2014