Avec les Gueux - Quarante dessins de Marie Baudet. Préface de Jean Richepin de l’Académie Francaise.: 40 original watercolour drawings by Marie Baudet, all of them signed,

40 original drawings by Marie Baudet, ink brush with various washes and water colour heightening, all of them signed by the artist, some dated and with manuscript title, mostly ca 380 x 530 mm a few ca 220 x 290 mm pasted onto white paper mounts (565 x 515 mm). Each original drawing bound in facing the collotype plate of the published suite with 5 unnumbered leaves letterpress text, 40 collotype plates with a tinted background (315 x 225 mm or smaller – reduced in size compared to the original drawings), title and numbering printed on narrow paper labels pasted onto lower margin of plates. Cont. brown half calf on six raised bands with gilt title in second compartment. Fancy endpapers. Folio (575 x 430 mm). Extremeties worn, covers rubbed and slightly spotted.


Bénézit (1976), I, p. 515. The book was published in 250 copies and "les planches de cet album ont été tirées par les procédés spéciaux de Fortier & Marotte" according to the imprint. Marie Ludivine Antoinette Dupuit known as Marie Baudet, (1864-1917), was a French painter, a student of Édouard Cuyer (1852-19?), a professor at the School of Fine Arts in Rouen. She was influenced by Paul Gauguin and the school of Pont-Aven, and became widely known in French art circles interested in contemporary art in 1910 with her suite of forty watercolour ink brushed drawings titled 'Avec les Gueux'. She participated in the 21st 'Exposition de la Société des Artistes Indépendants' in 1905 and in the 6th 'Salon d'Automne' 1913 in Paris, both exhibitions were important for highlighting developments and innovations in early 20th century art. The Salon d'Automne is an annual art exhibition held in Paris, France since 1903. The first Salon d'Automne was created under the initiative of the Belgian architect, literary man and art collector Frantz Jourdain, along with the architect Hector Guimard, the painters George Desvallières, Eugène Carrière, Félix Vallotton, Édouard Vuillard and the Maison Jansen. Perceived as a reaction against the conservative policies of the official Paris Salon, it almost immediately became the showpiece of developments and innovations in 20th century painting, drawing, sculpture, engraving, architecture and decorative arts. The Salon des Indépendants openend its first exhibition in Paris on 29 July 1884 with Albert Dubois-Pillet, Odilon Redon, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac being among its founders. For the following three decades their annual exhibitions set the trends in art of the early 20th century. In her work, Marie Baudet devoted herself in particular to delineate man's everyday life, its fragility and hardships. This is quite remarkably exemplified in the suite of portraits of beggars of her hometown Reims. The destitute elders are shown in an interplay of movement and break - the figures often grouped in rows moving towards an unspecified destination, rendering an air of isolation between them and separation from onlookers and wrapped up when resting along the way or pausing on a chair and while the first motif fills the entire sheet and thus gives the vague impression of people getting closer to each other, the second motif leaves much space between each figure intensifying the underlying atmosphere of separation between them. The artist captures the essence of the subject with a deliberate impressionistic stroke: the stooping attitude of the mostly elderly men and women, the outlining of the simple clothes with the focus on the contour of their figures, the few belongings and in some places the highlighting of parts of their garments in bright colour strokes. During the First World War Marie Baudet worked as a nurse until her untimely death on 6th April 1917. She was killed during a bombing raid by the German army in the Place de la République in Rheims while helping wounded soldiers into an ambulance. Of her works, the suite 'Avec les Gueux' is regarded as her masterpiece. A unique copy comprising the collotype reproductions and the wonderful original drawings by the artist.