Matinée d'Hiver sur les Quais

Félix-Hilaire Buhot

Etching and aquatint in dark brown ink on white paper

National Gallery of Art

This evocative etching and aquatint captures a wintry morning at the harbor of Le Havre, France, where a small packet steamer rests at the snowy quay while figures stroll along the waterfront. Félix-Hilaire Buhot, a masterful French printmaker who was orphaned at age seven and later trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, was renowned for his ability to render atmospheric conditions like snow, mist, and fog with extraordinary subtlety. Working alongside contemporaries like Degas and Pissarro, Buhot combined multiple printmaking techniques including etching, aquatint, and drypoint to create richly textured images that earned him recognition as one of the most innovative printmakers of late 19th-century France.