Unfinished Landscape

Minnesotans might mistake this for a snow scene, but it is simply unfinished. More curious is the faint upside-down figure of the French writer Honoré de Balzac, apparently etched by Bracquemond’s artist friend Paul Gavarni when at some point he had the copper printing plate. Bracquemond must have begun this landscape thinking he could scrape out the figure or etch over it. But after etching the background and running the inked plate through the press to check his progress, he evidently decided to stop where he was.