Marcellin Desboutin (1823-1902) Zola at the signature. 1879. Drypoint. 115x160mm. Clément-Janin 246. Very fine proof on heavy cream vellum, signed in pencil and titled at the foot. Marginal foxing and traces of oxidation. Full margins. "I knew Marcellin Desboutin at Manet's, a long time ago, about fifteen years ago... I've seen him at work, and I know that his life, especially in the last thirty years, has been entirely devoted to the most fervent labor... This art of drypoint, so personal, so alive, he reigns over it, he is king. You have to have seen him attack a plate directly with the point, which he uses as if it were a pencil. He takes a plate as he would a page from an album; in a single session, he usually removes a portrait with a masterly, definitive stroke. It is the painter in him who, freeing himself from the mechanical processes of old etching and the hazards of etching, lets himself go to the direct impression of nature... There is thus an admirable collection of contemporary portraits..." (Émile Zola, Préface auCatalogue de l'exposition de l'œuvre gravé de Marcellin Desboutin, June 30, 1889).