Rodolphe BRESDIN (Montrelais, 1822 - Sèvres, 1885) Passage of the Alps by Hannibal Pen and ink on bristol paper with embossed border. 17,6 x 12 cm (20 x 14,4 cm with embossing) Provenance: Émile Philippe Magaudoux, known as Philippe Mohlitz (1941-2019), engraver. Bresdin was one of the first "cursed artists" of the 19th century, his drawings and engravings attracting only a few discerning collectors. Nicknamed the "stone dog", Rodolphe Bresdin arrived in Paris at the age of 17 and began a life of wandering, of caricatured bohemianism, browsing in bookshops for prints by the greatest engravers such as Ostade and Rembrandt, Dürer or Altorfer. The fantastic aspect strikes and bewitches the spectator. From a harmless scene emerges an impression of the unknown, a universe that is not fearsome but unspeakable. His singular work as a draughtsman in his exploration of landscapes as well as huge armies, village scenes or biblical subjects (such as the good shepherd) with the aspects of an engraver gives his work a medieval and Nordic atmosphere. Bresdin introduced the young Odilon Redon to engraving, with whom we find this taste for the strangeness of intense blacks. Redon, an admirer of his master, devoted his first retrospective exhibition to him at the Salon d'Automne in 1908.