Subject
A countryman performs a manual task while standing in a punt amongst some trees. His reaches towards the prow of the boat with both hands in order to lift a two-handled basket from inside the hull.
Printed text from a book at top right. Signed in pencil bottom right. Later inscriptions in pencil: bottom left of sheet ‘691. 6865.’ bottom right ‘man in a punt’
Printing
Printed on laid paper taken from a book; fragmentary text "INTERP. " le parlement, chambre des comptes et cour" suggests that the subject might have been the Cour des comptes, a specialised court in France under the Ancien Régime responsible for auditing royal and state accounts. Further text on the reverse, top left partly obscured by mount, ‘Mercæur & Joyeuse’ .
There is no direct equivalent in A catalogue of the etchings, drypoints and lithographs, by Professor Alphonse Legros (1837-1911) in the collection of Frank E. Bliss, either in English or French, for the title Man in a Punt. Therefore; either this is a work not known to Bliss or this print is listed in under another title which has no descriptive information that would allow the etching to be identified.
