Moret: the Wood-Mill

Art Historical Context

Step into the serene French countryside with *Moret: the Wood-Mill* (1908), a delicate wood engraving by Louis Auguste Lepère. This intimate print captures the rustic charm of Moret-sur-Loing, a picturesque town along the Loing River southeast of Paris, famed for its water mills and artistic allure—Alfred Sisley painted there in the 1890s. Lepère, a master French printmaker (1849–1918), renders the wood mill's weathered structures amid lush foliage, evoking the quiet rhythm of rural life at the turn of the century. Crafted as a wood engraving in black ink on luxurious cream laid Japanese paper—a medium prized for its absorbency and texture that enhances fine details—this work measures a modest 12.4 × 15 cm. Wood engraving, using the hard end-grain of boxwood, allowed Lepère to achieve intricate lines and tonal depth rivaling drawings, at a time when photography threatened traditional printmaking. Published in 1908, it exemplifies Lepère's revival of the technique for standalone prints, bridging 19th-century illustration traditions with modern sensibilities. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Prints and Drawings department, this piece invites visitors to appreciate Lepère's precision and atmospheric poetry, a window into France's enduring love for nature's subtle beauties.

About the Artist

Louis Auguste Lepère · 1849–1918

Louis-Auguste Lepère (1849–1918) was born in Paris on November 30 to the sculptor François Lepère, immersing him early in the artistic world. At age thirteen, he apprenticed in the studio of the English wood engraver Joseph Burn-Smeeton, training there from 1862 to 1867, and later attended drawing courses under Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran at the Petite École (now École nationale supérieure des art...