Prints and Authors in the Time of Manet

The Winter of 1879 in Paris (L’Hiver de 1879 à Paris)

Etching, aquatint, spit bite, soft ground, drypoint, 1879
Museum Purchase, 1926.133

The winter of 1879 was a notably harsh one in the history of Paris, set in the context of the grand open spaces of Napoleon III’s Second Empire. Félix Buhot, an innovative and experimental printmaker, sought to depict the power and majesty of nature, a goal that reveals his affinity for Romanticism—an art movement that emphasized the transcendent power of nature and the role of emotion in art.