Désillusion! Et dire que j'ai passé quinze ans de ma vie à copier la jambe de l'Apollon du belveder pour arriver à peindre un pain de sucre sur l'enseigne d'un épicier!.....j'espérais grimper autrement au sommet de l'échelle sociale....

Abstract

A drunk painter, who is painting the lettering on a shop sign, is complaining loudly about not being famous. Of this print there exists a first state, maybe from the former Dreyfus collection, with the following handwritten text by the texter (as supplied by H. Vincent in English): "My dear Dutacq, I do not understand why you should receive proofs so frightfully pulled as this;...in your and my interest, you should watch that the stones not be massacred in this fashion".