The Laundresses, from the third album of L'Estampe Originale

Art Historical Context

Step into the bustling world of late 19th-century Paris *The Laundresses* (1894), a captivating soft ground etching by French printmaker Louis Auguste Lepère. Featured in the third album of *L'Estampe Originale—a groundbreaking series that championed original prints as fine art rather than mere reproductions—this work captures the everyday toil of women at work by the water's edge, evoking the rhythms of urban life during the Belle Époque. Lepère masterfully employs a sophisticated technique: aquatint, roulette, and soft ground etching from three separate plates in ochre, red, and blue, printed on cream wove paper. This multi-plate color process, measuring 38.3 × 21.6 cm in its image area, allowed for rich, tonal depth and subtle hues that mimic the play of light on damp fabrics and rippling water. Such innovation revitalized etching as a vibrant medium for color, bridging traditional craftsmanship with modern expressiveness. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Prints and Drawings collection, *The Laundresses* exemplifies Lepère's realist eye for ordinary scenes, highlighting the dignity of labor amid France's artistic ferment. A testament to the 1890s print revival, it invites visitors to appreciate how everyday moments became timeless art.

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...