La Fontaine, fables, Le Cerf et la Vigne. Eau forte originale sur papier Vergé

Original etching before letters heightened with aquatint and signed in the plate.
Created on laid paper at the request of publisher A. QUANTIN to illustrate La Fontaine's fable: "Le cerf et la Cigne" ["The Stag and the Swan"].
Very handsome condition, presented in a modern black mount and protected by tissue guard. Auguste Delierre (1829-1891) is referenced in Bénézit, the dictionary of painters, sculptors, draughtsmen and engravers: "history painter, genre scenes, animated landscapes, still lifes, illustrator. Student of Eugène Ciceri, he participated in the Paris Salon between 1852 and 1889. His compositions of landscapes animated with hunting dogs show the influence of works by Desportes and Oudry which he long copied. He also shows a predilection for still lifes. He also illustrated La Fontaine's Fables." Alain-Marie Bassy in his book "Les Fables de La Fontaine, quatre siècles d'illustration" ["La Fontaine's Fables, four centuries of illustration"] analyzes his style for the representation of the fables: "S'il recherche le même angle de vue sur l'animal que Gustave Doré, il écarte tout sens de l'effroi. L'oiseau blessé d'une flèche n'est plus un grand oiseau migrateur mais la caille délicieusement colorée des natures mortes. [...]Devant [les animaux au milieu desquels nous vivons], l'œil de Delierre est aussi froid que celui d'un entomologiste. L'art de la fable devient chez lui le plus bel exemple de naturalisme pictural." ["If he seeks the same angle of view on the animal as Gustave Doré, he discards any sense of terror. The bird wounded by an arrow is no longer a large migratory bird but the deliciously colored quail of still lifes. [...] Before [the animals among which we live], Delierre's eye is as cold as that of an entomologist. The art of the fable becomes in his work the finest example of pictorial naturalism."] A deluxe edition in two volumes: Fables de La Fontaine. Edition illustrée de 75 planches à l'eau-forte par A. Delierre, Paris, Quantin, 1883, is catalogued at the Bibliothèque Nationale. Les eaux-fortes des fables sont avant la lettre et enfermées dans de jolis cadres Louis XVI." ["The etchings of the fables are before letters and enclosed in lovely Louis XVI frames."]