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PAUL HELLEU
Vannes, Brittany 1859 – 1927 Paris

Helleu epitomises the Belle Epoque artist of fin de siècle Paris with his elegant restrained portraits of society beauties. But his favourite models were his wife, Alice, whom he met when commissioned to paint her portrait when she was only fourteen, and whom he married two years later, and his children.

Sickert helped Helleu etch his first plate, and Tissot gave him a diamond to encourage him to take up drypoint. Sargent was a close friend and lent him his studio. Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, his greatest patron and author of a book about him, described Helleu as “notre subtil ami, le maitre des élégances” (our subtle friend, master of elegancies).

Ellen Helleu
wearing a broad brimmed hat with a bow
Montesquiou LXV
335 x 308 mm
Original colour drypoint, 1901.
Superb impression, with fresh colours.
Signed in pencil.

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A study of the artist’s daughter as a young teenager. .

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PARMIGIANINO
Parma 1503 – 1540 Casalmaggiore

Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, called Il Parmigianino from his birthplace, was a leading Mannerist draughtsman, painter and designer.

His graceful style was influential throughout Europe, disseminated by his prints. He was an early Italian exponent of etching, usually to reproduce his own drawings which were greatly in demand. He probably learnt to etch from Marcantonio Raimondi in Bologna when both artists had fled to that city after the Sack of Rome in 1527.

Standing Shepherd Boy
Bartsch 12, Mistrali 7 ii/ii
111 x 73 mm
Etching, c1530.
A good clear impression of the second (final) state, with the tree trunk reworked and the space between the hand on the stick and the shepherd boy’s head blank.
A good impression, without apparent wear, trimmed to or just into the platemark.
Good condition.

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AUGUSTE DELATRE
Paris 1822 – 1907 Paris

Delâtre learnt to print from Charles Jacques and Louis Marvy and he worked for them from 1843. Later he bought a press from them and set up his own printing workshop and began to etch himself. He became the leading printer of artists’ etchings in Paris and pioneered the controversial ‘ mobile etching ’ technique, where ink was manipulated on the plate so that rather than uniform impressions, individual impressions from the same plate could vary, rather like a series a monotypes.

His influential Paris workshop was the meeting place for many etchers and the Japanese manga he owned is said to have sparked japonisme in Paris.

In 1862, with Cadart, Delâtre co-founded the Société des Aquafortistes. Two years later he was invited to London, at the instigation of Whistler and Seymour Haden, to advise on setting up an etching class at the National Art Training Schools at South Kensington (what in later years became the Royal College of Art).

Seymour Haden said “If Rembrandt lived now, he would send his plates to Delâtre”.

In the Siege of Paris in 1870 Delâtre’s studio was destroyed with all his work and equipment. He fled to London and set up in business there for a few years. The fascinating piece of ephemera offered here is an impression of the etching he made to advertise himself when he set up business in London.

Address de Delâtre Delâtre’s London trade ‘card’
Mr Aug Delâtre, imprimeur-graveur, 7 Lower James Street, Golden Square. Speciality in printing ETCHINGS. PRIVATE LESSONS. LONDON
Béraldi 106 i/ii
83 x 141 mm
Original etching, c1870.
First state of two. (In the second state his address has changed to Howland Street.)
Printed on japan.
A little soiled in the margins.

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EDWARD LEAR
London 1812 – 1888 San Remo

Lear began his artistic career as an ornithological draughtsman at the age of 15. He was later employed by the Zoological Society.

Poor health led Lear to turn to foreign travel, and landscape painting. From 1837 he mainly lived abroad.

On his extensive travels in Italy, Greece, Albania, Malta, Corsica, Egypt, the Holy Land, India and Ceylon he made drawings which he later turned into large finished paintings, or lithographs for his seven travel books. He eventually settled permanently in San Remo.

View from Monte Skopó – Zante
239 x 366 mm (image); 337 x 497 mm (sheet)
Original tinted lithograph, 1863, signed with Lear’s monogram in the image.
Lettered as No.16, as published in Views in the Seven Ionian Islands.
Printed in black and beige ink on wove.

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Ex collection: Osbert Howard Barnard (Lugt 2007b)

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JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER R.A.
London 1775 – 1851 Chelsea, London

Turner conceived his great print project, the Liber Studiorum (‘Book of Studies’ – though it was not published as a book and did not have text, other than the lettering on the plates) in 1807 as a demonstration of his prowess in pastoral, marine, mountainous, architectural and historical landscape painting, and in emulation of Claude’s Liber Veritatis (the record of the artist’s oeuvre in wash drawings, which when brought to England by the Duke of Devonshire had been engraved as a series of two hundred mezzotints by Richard Earlom in the 1770’s).

Turner proposed a series of 100 plates, for which he produced preparatory brown watercolour wash drawings, to be published in Parts, as the work progressed. The first Part was issued in 1807.

Turner etched the outline design onto the plates and employed a professional engraver to complete the plates in mezzotint. His relationships with his various engravers proved difficult and for several of the later plates he chose, or was obliged, to engrave the entire plate himself.

Lack of financial success led him to abandon the project twenty years later, having issued seventy-one subjects. In the published state the plates were generally titled in the lower plate border and had a single or double capital letter in the top border categorizing the type of landscape it represented.

This impression offered here (and another in the catalogue, The Alcove, Isleworth) are both from the collection of Thomas Pegram.

Pegram retired at the early age of forty to the Wirral and within a few years, c1910, began to collect prints seriously. He would be a loyal supporter of Griggs, not only buying Griggs’ own etchings (Cross Hands was dedicated to Pegram) but in the financial difficulties of the 1930’s, bought from Griggs’ personal collection. Griggs called him “so much our good angel”. In 1933 he bought Griggs’ complete set of Turner’s Liber Studiorum.

Aesacus and Hesperie
Finberg 66 i/iv
208 x 290 mm
Original etching and mezzotint, 1818.
The entire plate completely engraved by Turner himself. The extremely rare first published state, with the face of Hesperie uncovered and turned towards Aesacus, and with the rays of light introduced from the upper left through the trees. With letters but before the additional marks in the margin.
Published by Turner 1 Jan, 1819.
Printed in brown ink on cream laid paper.
A rich impression, time toned through the window opening of Pegram’s former mount.

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Ex collection John Pye (Lugt 2056)
John Pye (1872-1874) was an engraver, publisher and author of 'Notes ... [on] the Liber Studiorum of J M W Turner'. He assembled a select collection of prints after Turner which was acquired by the British Museum in 1869. His proofs of Turner's 'Liber Studiorum' followed in 1870.

Ex collection British Museum, acquired from Pye in 1870 (Lugt 302) Sold by the British Museum as a duplicate (Lugt 305, initialled in ink by Campbell Dodgson, the Keeper 1912-32)

Ex collection Thomas Pegram, and thence by descent.

The story of Aesacus & Hesperie comes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Turner chose to depict the beginning of the tale, with Aesacus, illegitimate son of King Priam of Troy, first encountering and falling in love with Hesperie, daughter of the river-god Cebron.

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