Sarah Sauvin - Rare Prints - October 2020

their balance rests, not on the rules of perspective, but on the way they fit together. Paulette Choné reflects on Duvet’s style that “he disregards the horizon and the slow flight of lines in the distance”: “vertical stacking”, “the way elements pile up, leaving no gap, create in Duvet’s works a very personal ostinato, a world entirely his own, made up of thick forests, vaguely antique buildings, spaces of unquiet, [etc.]”

This strong distaste for emptiness is also reflected in his “love of relief” and the care he takes to imitate different textures, “fur, grass, leaves, feathers, scales, muscular nudes, the tight lumpy clouds…” (Langres à la Renaissance, p. 265, our translation).

On the other hand, his attraction for things left unfinished, for non-finito, can be seen in other engravings by Duvet, and particularly in three engravings with similar dimensions (248 x 165 mm on average): The Lamentation (Eisler 71), The Despair and Suicide of Judas (Eisler 72) and Moses and Saint Peter (Eisler 73). Nicolas Boffy is of the opinion that these four prints could make up “a series, the meaning and logic of which still remain to be discovered” (Langres à la Renaissance, p. 260, our translation). He suggests that all four “express the same idea: protecting oneself against the dangers of “an evil death” by cultivating compassion for the suffering of the Saviour, faith in Christ, and the intercession of saints.” Colin Eisler indeed points out an hypothesis: that Saints Sebastian, Anthony and Roch, “depicting three saints venerated for their healing powers, is one of the few known French examples of a Pestblatt”, these pious images thought to protect the bearer against the endemic plague.