Le lavoir abandonné (environs de Troyes). The abandoned wash-house (near Troyes)

Gustave Leheutre (1861-1932) was born at Troyes, the locale of this print. In 1888 he studied painting under Henri Gervex, Ferdinand Humbert, and Eugène Carrière, and was later associated with the Nabis. In 1892 he was impressed by a set of James McNeill Whistler etchings of Venice exhibited by Georges Petit Gallery in Paris, and abandoned painting to pursue printmaking. His first prints were made in 1893 and most depict landscapes or cityscapes. He took his first etchings to the printers Auguste and Eugène Delâtre with whom he worked for most of his editioned printing. During his life he produced 160 etchings, seven drypoints and three lithographs. He was most profoundly influenced by Whistler. Leheutre was elected to the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers in 1908 but resigned two years later. In 1905 he commissioned to make a series of etchings to illustrate Eugène Fromentin's <em>Dominique'.</em>

Most of Leheutre's prints concentrate on landscapes that depict intimate scenes of French urban and rural life and do not reflect his Nabi association. This is one such example, a picturesque, tumbledown, long-abandoned publish wash-house in the environs of his native city of Troyes. It is from an edition of 25. 

Leheutre's later work was mostly rendered in oil, with a focus on close-up figure studies. During this period it became rather impressionistic and appears quickly rendered, almost as if capturing a single moment in time. We can interestingly connect this late style with the equivalent of his Impressionist near-contemporary, Mary Cassatt.

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art    May 2018