It was not till 1910 that the first collective exhibition of Meryon’s
etched work was held in Paris, at the Galerie Devambez. In England,
where his fame was spread by Seymour Haden, Philip Gilbert Hamerton and
Wedmore, Meryon’s reputation grew more rapidly, at least after his
death. The great French private collections of his etchings crossed the
Channel, Burty’s being sold in 1876, and the year 1879, eleven years
after Meryon’s death, witnessed the publication of two different English
catalogues of his etchings and the holding of a fine exhibition of his
etchings and drawings at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, to which the
Rev. J. J. Heywood was the largest contributor. Much later, in 1902, an
important exhibition was held by Messrs. Obach & Co., while Messrs. P.
and D. Colnaghi & Co., arranged another very fine Meryon exhibition in
1919. The British Museum, fortunately, owes to the foresight of a former
Keeper of Prints the early formation of a magnificent, though not
complete, collection of Meryon, to which additions are still
occasionally made, though they must needs be few now that a further
stage in the migration of fine proofs is in progress and not the Channel
only, but the Atlantic, parts them from their _pays d’origine_. The
National Gallery of Scotland is fortunate in having obtained, by the
gift of Mrs. G. R. Halkett, a small selection of very fine proofs of
Meryon etchings, but Edinburgh’s gain is far less than was Glasgow’s
loss by the sale, in 1916, of the collection of Mr. B. B. Macgeorge,
which was undoubtedly the most complete work of Meryon ever brought
together, containing, as it did, not merely almost every etching by the
master in almost every state, but also a large number of his original
drawings for the etchings of Paris. The year 1916 was an unfavourable
time for acquiring such a valuable _œuvre_ for any national or municipal
museum, and the Macgeorge collection went to America and was dispersed,
only a small number of proofs remaining in, or returning to, this
country, where, I suppose, no one collection of importance still remains
except that of the British Museum. A Meryon exhibition is being held at
the Museum this autumn to celebrate the centenary of the artist’s birth.
EARLY LIFE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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