L'Auberge du Gros Coq a Schopfheim, (Duché de Bade) / No Room Left

Paris: Published by Verlag von Goupil Cie., Berlin, Coupil et Co., New York, Goupil et Cie. Paris et London, 1854. Hand-coloured lithograph. Goupil Publishers blindstamp, Paris. Good condition apart from some overall light foxing and a 2" loss in the bottom right corner. A fine plate from the series 'Les Touristes', which chronicled Guérard's trip through Switzerland, Savoy and Bavaria. Set in a congested street of the German town of Schopfheim, this image depicts several weary travellers arriving at the Gros Coq hotel only to find out that no rooms are available.

Born in Nancy, France in 1821, Eugene Guérard was primarily known as a genre and landscape painter, draughtsman, and watercolourist. After briefly studying in the workshop of Pierre Dieudonné in Lorraine, he moved to Paris in 1838, where he trained at the École des Beaux-Arts with the renowned French history painter Paul Delaroche. He exhibited many of his paintings at the Salon and was a prolific draughtsman who published several series of lithographs depicting daily life including Les Parisiennes (c.1850), The Opera (1844), and Aspects of Paris. Guérard also regularly contributed images to the publishing house of Goupil, which issued the series from which this plate comes. With the commencement of the 1848 revolution, Guérard was forced to leave Paris and embarked on a voyage to Switzerland, Savoy and Bavaria before returning to his hometown in 1849. It was on this two and a half month journey that he made the sketches on which his plates from 'Les Touristes' are derived. Rather than picturing the panoramic views and various historical monuments he undoubtedly observed on the trip, the vividly coloured plates in this series instead depict the tourists and locals Guérard encountered. Essentially genre scenes, they focus expressly on the experience of travel and tourism and frequently have a satirical undertone.

Cf. Benezit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, vol. 6, p. 530.