INTRODUCTION.
A century has passed since the birth of
Meryon, a circumstance which excuses, if it
does not actually demand, a survey in retrospect
of the great etcher's work and the
growth of his renown. There is no indication,
it must be said at once, that the lapse
of time has weakened in any degree the sure fabric
of his fame. About no other modern etcher, save Whistler,
is there an equal consensus of opinion among those
whose opinion counts, that he ranks among the great masters
of his art. Whistler himself was a dissentient; he spoke one
day to Mr. Wedmore of "Meryon, whom you have taken out
of his comfortable place." Without insinuating that he was
jealous of a confrère with whom he was forced to share the
honour of a Wedmore catalogue, it may be remarked that the
utterances of such a lover of paradox as Whistler need not be
taken too seriously. Nor is an artist always the best judge of
a fellow artist who pursues very different aims from his own.
Meryon's reputation, though it is ungrudgingly admitted and
admired by most etchers of to-day and yesterday, was established
by the critics and collectors of a generation now extinct.
Philippe Burty, who published the first critical article
on Meryon and the first catalogue of his etchings in the
Gazette des Beaux-Arts of 1863, was the first to discern clearly
and to proclaim to the world his peculiar genius. Charles
Baudelaire and Théophile Gautier added their words of praise
and the Galerie Notre-Dame evoked the enthusiasm of Victor
Hugo. Bracquemond, by twelve years his junior in age
but his contemporary in the practice and mastery of etching,
gave him all the support of his appreciation, and there was a
small enlightened circle of collectors, including Wasset of
the War Office, Niel of the Ministry of the Interior, Meryon's
former shipmate De Salicis, the English etcher Seymour
Haden, and a few others who saw the great merit of his work
