Pieter Dupont - magnificent Etching on zinc - the Ground Worker (homme de peine) - 1901 - edition 58/75 - Sold

• Etching titled Homme de Peine. Created in Nogent-sur-Marne around 1900-1901. A quay worker at work with the Seine in the background. Catalogue of Wisselingh No.327 in an edition of 75 copies. Printed under the supervision of Willem Witsen. Sheet size 40 cm x 21.5 cm. The well-known studio stamp is at the top left of the plate.

Pieter Dupont was a Dutch watercolorist, graphic artist, painter, draftsman, book cover designer, pastelist, designer, drawing teacher, and professor.
In 1900 he married Frederike Vaarzon-Morel. In 1906 his first son Pieter Jan was born and in 1908 his second son Willem Frederik was born. Willem Frederik Dupont is the author of the book Pieter Dupont, his life and works.

He worked in Amsterdam until 1896, then Paris from 1896 to 1900, London, Nogent-sur-Marne 1900 – 1902, Auvers-sur-Oise 1903, Amsterdam 1903 – 1905, Hilversum, Oosterbeek and (Renkum) 1902. As a painter, Pieter Dupont was known in his early years for his Amsterdam cityscapes, in which the influence of GH Breitner was noticeable. In 1896 he moved to Paris, where he specialized in etching.

Dupont was a teacher at the Tekenschool voor Kunstambachten (1891-1896) and became professor of graphic art at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam in 1903. He designed stamps, banknotes, and made landscapes, forest landscapes, portraits, church interiors, and cityscapes. His work can be seen in the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo and the Singer Museum in Laren, among others. A number of his etchings were published from 1893 onwards by the firm EJ van Wisselingh in Amsterdam in editions of usually 50 to 100 copies. The large number of his etchings and engravings depicting working horses is striking.
In addition to his work as a professor, Dupont continued to engrave and etch. In 1908 he was asked to engrave a new 25 guilder note based on a design by A.J. Derkinderen. Only part of this engraving was finished when Dupont became seriously ill around Christmas 1910 and died a few weeks later of angina pectoris at the age of forty.