Bords du Nil

Bords du Nil, circa 1865. 
Etching on laid paper. 
Signed in plate lower left: E. Dufeu. 
Published by Cadart & Luquet, Éditeurs, 79 Rue Richelieu, Paris. 
With the blindstamp of the Société des Aquafortistes, lower margin. 
In Bords du Nil (“Banks of the Nile”), Édouard Dufeu evokes the timeless majesty of Egypt through a delicate interplay of light, atmosphere, and landscape. A group of figures, likely Bedouins or local travelers, pause along the riverbank beneath tall, wind-swept palm trees. Beyond them, the calm expanse of the Nile stretches toward a distant horizon, where the faint silhouettes of pyramids and sails dissolve into the hazy light.

Dufeu’s etching reveals the refined sensibility of a painter-etcher steeped in the 19th-century fascination with Orientalism. His deft linear technique captures both the serenity and grandeur of the Egyptian landscape, using subtle cross-hatching to convey the brilliance of the desert sky and the delicate shimmer of the river. The result is a scene both romantic and observational, balancing ethnographic detail with poetic reverie.

Excellent impression with full margins; minimal light toning and faint scattered foxing, otherwise in fine condition.

A painter and engraver associated with the Société des Aquafortistes, Édouard Dufeu was a student of Félix Bracquemond and shared the circle’s commitment to reviving etching as a painter’s medium. Bords du Nil exemplifies his precision of line and atmospheric subtlety, combining the documentary appeal of travel art with the meditative stillness of early Symbolist landscape.