The print that survived a falling-out

The sheet gathers many people, but its two makers will soon part. In 1782, Louis Ducros engraves The Fried-Food Seller after a scene conceived by Jacques Sablet. The two men from Vaud work in Rome, produce images intended notably for travellers, then fall out over their series. This small print preserves what the relationship did not continue: a collaboration in which a draughtsman imagines the scene and a printmaker gives it a form that can be printed, distributed and viewed far from its place of origin.

The seller belongs to the twelve sheets of Italian Scenes and Costumes, produced in 1781–1782. The MCBA holds a copy measuring eighteen by twenty-five and a half centimetres, acquired in 2000. Etching and aquatint create an effect close to a wash drawing. The subject is a seller of fried food near the Pantheon's fountain. The famous ancient city therefore need not occupy the entire centre. Everyday trade offers another access to Rome through bodies, utensils and clothing sharing a street space.

Looking at the work — In the MCBA reproduction, figures are distributed around a stall and large containers. A light roof covers the central part. Bodies draw closer, bend or remain on the periphery; clothing lines distinguish them in an almost entirely grey image. Paving reaches the lower edge. Light brings out certain faces and fabrics, while the background remains dark. Our gaze can follow a circle of presences rather than one person detached from everyone else.

The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland recalls that Ducros settled in Rome and developed a production of views for tourists. The print belongs to this world of circulating images. A work on paper travels more easily than a painting, and a printing plate permits several impressions. The printmaker's craft then takes on concrete importance: it moves an invention from its designer's hand into copies others can acquire. Collaboration is not merely proximity between artists; it also organises a way of selling and transmitting.

A scholarly study devoted to images for the Grand Tour emphasises, in the Sablet–Ducros series, the shift from merely costumed figures towards people shown active in characterised places. This shift can be seen here. Clothes remain important, but bend with bodies and take their place around a business. We can look at the seller for the differences in costume; we can also follow relationships between those serving, those approaching and those staying at the edge. Activity structures the visible diversity.

The MCBA states that making the series occasions a falling-out. Sablet then leaves the lodging he shared with Ducros in the Strada della Croce and moves in with Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours in the Via Margutta. The precise disagreement is not explained in the entry. It would therefore be unwarranted to turn it into a quarrel over money, merit or division of tasks. The change of address establishes a real separation. The small work provides no inner account of it: it preserves the result of an association now ended.

This separation between the relationship and its product gives the sheet a particular endurance. The artists stop living together; the forms they developed remain linked. In a printed copy, the drawing cannot simply be disentangled from the printmaking without changing the image. Their shared contribution thus continues through the gaze of those encountering the print. The seller centres a Roman group, but also becomes the point where two artistic practices successfully met before their paths diverged.

The final surprise is modest: after the falling-out, a scene of gathering remains. This proximity belongs to the characters and composition, not to a reconciliation of which we know nothing. Yet it gives the story its warmth. A seller, his helpers and customers continue to occupy the same small surface, while their makers' history has divided. The sheet holds together what was made by two. More than two centuries later, we can still look at this shared achievement without inventing a happy ending to their relationship.