Auction introduction: No one pays attention nowadays to anything but prints; it’s the rage, the young generation produces nothing else’ (Camille Pissarro, 1897). This latest iteration in the series of sales of prints from the collection of the Late Sam Josefowitz celebrates the revival of printmaking in the second half of the 19th century, predominantly in France. It includes an important ensemble of Symbolist prints, an artistic movement which rejected observable reality in favour of the imagination. Among the highlights are an early impression of Le Bon Samaritan by Rodolphe Bresdin. A phantasmagorical depiction of the New Testament parable, the lithograph was memorably described by Des Esseintes, the aesthete hero in the novel Á rebours, 1884 (Against Nature) by J. K. Huysman, as `the design of an uncertain, primitive Dürer with an opium-steeped brain’. Other important examples include Gnome by Odilon Redon (illustrated at left), and a first edition of Eine Handshuh by Max Klinger. While Symbolism eschewed the world in favour of the fantastical, Impressionist artists such as Edgar Degas embraced it. Degas produced a small but important body of etchings depicting intimate interior scenes, portraits, and figures on stage, including some of the earliest evocations of the dramatic effects of electric light. The influence of the vivid colour and strong contours of Japanese woodcuts is reflected in the fashion for colour lithography in the 1890’s, and in particularly the burgeoning art of the poster. Toulouse-Lautrec’s masterpiece La Passagère du 54 - Promenade en yacht was commissioned in 1896 for an international exhibition of posters at the legendary gallery Salon des Cent at 31 Rue Bonaparte. The sale ends with a rare collection of etchings by Dr. Paul Gachet, the physician and friend of Vincent Van Gogh, and an enthusiastic amateur printmaker. In addition to the listed viewing times, the collection will be available by appointment at Christie’s Paris during the Salon du Dessin, 18-22 March.