PORTALS & BRIDGES
and the occasional Window

Though there are etchings of bridges in the 17th century, vide Jan Both’s Ponte Molle, the interest in architectural elements as subjects for prints mainly dates from the 18th century onwards and was particularly prevalent in the 19th and early 20th centuries, when it is especially noticeable among British artists.

As foreign travel developed there was a commensurate interest in the buildings found abroad, which equally inspired a comparative interest in home topography, both for artists, as motifs, and for tourists as souvenirs of their journeys, or for more serious travellers and scholars, as historical and artistic records, encompassing structures from the ancient past up to contemporary times.

Anon: La Passerelle de l’Estacade, Paris

Doors, bridges and windows, by their very nature, concern communicating spaces and lend themselves to analogies. There are “doors to adventure”; “windows of opportunity”; “bridging of gaps”. They offer openings, to the world, to new potential; give access, admitting entrance but also exit; permit privacy or secure retreat; they relate outside to inside and vice versa; connect land either side of a chasm; and allow overhead travel.

However except for the ‘philosophical’ themes of Tissot’s Il faut qu’une porte soit ouverte ou fermée - A door should be open or shut (see Home Page Selection) and Deigan’s Dark Walls, most of the small selection of prints in this catalogue can be seen as straight topography, though the personal inclinations, preferences and associations of the viewer will, as ever, always colour the image.

Charles Heyman: Notre Dame vue d’une Fenêtre de l’ancien Hôtel-Dieu, Paris

Here are grand entrances of gothic splendour; modest doors to shops or workshops; and examples of gateways ranging from the European to the Ancient Egyptian and Chinese.

There are specific bridges, famous for their antiquity, beauty or engineering, or unidentifiable examples providing picturesque elements in a landscape composition.

I hope it is an interesting variety which might appeal.

James McBey: Santa Maria della Fava, Venice

Published July 2015.
Quarto paperback, 64 pages, 110 items offered for sale; 111 illustrations (of which 9 are in colour).

(Price U.K. £12; International orders £18)

Prints available
Some prints from this catalogue are still available.

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Artists included in the catalogue:

• Anderson S
• Affleck A.F.
• Allan R.W.
• Anderson S.
• Applebey W.C.
• Béjot E.
• Both J.
• Brangwyn F.
• Bull N.
• Cadzow J.
• Callot J.
• Cameron D.Y.
• Canaletto Claude
• Cotman J.S.
• Daum J.
• Deigan A.
• Dodd F.
• Farrell F.A.
• Foncé C.A.
• Frisius S.W.
• Gentleman D.
• Gerrits H.
• Gethin P.F.
• Goff R.
• Heyman C.
• Holroyd C.
• Howarth A.E.
• Jaques B.
• Kasimir L.
• Lindsay L.
• Lorrain C.
• Lumsden E.S.
• Mackie C.H.
• Mackenzie J.H.
• McBey J.
• Menpes M.
• Menzel A.
• von Meryon C.
• Monk W.
• Murray C.O.
• Nieuwenkamp W.O.J.
• Orlik E.
• Osborne M.
• Pattison E.L.
• Pearsall R.
• Raverat G.
• Richards F.
• Robertson D.
• Robins W.P.
• Rosenberg L.C.
• Rushbury H.
• Schmolle S.
• Schmutzer F.
• Sell R.
• Sharland E.W.
• Short F.
• Smith S.
• Soper G.
• Squirrel L.
• Stone H.M.
• Storey H.
• Story E.J.
• Strang W.
• Straube W.
• Synge E.M.
• Tissot J.
• Tremel M.
• Turner J.M.W.
• Vacher S.
• Vinckboons D.
• Vogeler H.
• Walcot W.
• Watson C.
• Wedgwood G.
• Webb H.G.
• Whistler J.Mc.
• Woollard D.
• Workman H.
• Wyllie W.L.

Full details for the illustrations on the left:

An Anonymous early 20th Century Colour Woodcut
La Passerelle de l’Estacade, Paris
369 x 247 mm
On soft japan. £350

The wooden footbridge from the Ile St Louis to the Right Bank of the Seine was built in 1818 as a jetty to protect boats against the breakup of ice in the winter. It was demolished in 1938.

CHARLES HEYMAN
Paris 1881 – 1915 Ablain St Nazaire
Notre Dame vue d’une Fenêtre de l’ancien Hôtel-Dieu, Paris
Inv FF 57; Sanchex & Seydoux 100, only state
246 x 177 mm
Original drypoint, 1911. Signed in pencil. Edition of 20 (numbered 18/20). On antique laid paper watermarked with a Palmette. Sold

Ex collection: H J Thomas (Lugt 1378)
Exhibited at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts 1912
A view from a window of the former Hospital of the west façade of Notre Dame de Paris, built under bishop Eudes de Sully from 1200 and completed in 1250.
Le Corbusier described it as a “Pure creation of the spirit”.

JAMES McBEY
Newburgh, Aberdeen 1883 – 1959 Tangiers
Santa Maria della Fava, Venice
Hardie Supp. 234
325 x 214 mm
Original etching, published 1926. The plate signed and dated October 1925. Signed in ink and numbered XIX of the American quota of 20 (the total edition was 80). On old Whatman watermarked laid paper from the 1840’s.
£1250
The reconstruction of the church was carried out in stages from 1705-53, but the façade was never finished. McBey emphasises this in choosing to make the image an atmospheric night scene and omitting such minimal architectural detail there is, specifically the tall doorcase framed by pillars and surmounted by a pediment featuring a shell symbolic of the Virgin.

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