Promenade II

Promenade II, etched by Thomas Handforth in 1928, is one of the artist's elegant figural compositions from his late Paris and early travelling years and brings his observational manner to bear on the leisured social ritual of a public walk. The composition centres on a group of well-dressed figures moving along an avenue, with the surrounding architecture and trees handled in lighter etched line. The print's title and the implied 'second state' or 'second version' indicate that Handforth was working through a recurring subject — the promenade was a staple of European urban life and a frequent print subject from Boilly through the nineteenth-century French and English schools — and his treatment locates the scene in a recognisably modern but unspecified European city setting. The etched line is precise and economical; the figures are described in a small number of essential strokes that convey costume, posture, and movement without lingering. The print belongs to the consistent group of 1928 Handforth etchings on cream laid paper held by the Art Institute of Chicago (https://www.artic.edu/artworks/70347) and acquired through Mrs. Merle Shera. For students of Thomas Handforth, Promenade II is useful as evidence that his interwar etching practice was not exclusively keyed to non-Western or rural subjects: he could equally apply the same observational discipline to the social rituals of European city life, and the result is among the more graceful sheets in his catalogue.