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The Home Page Selection

GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI, Mozzano di Mestre, Venice 1720 – 1778 Rome. Altra Veduta del Tempio della Sibilla in Tivoli. Original etching, c.1761-65. FRANCISCO GOYA y Lucentes, Fuente de Todos, Aragon 1746 – 1828 Bordeaux. Disparate cruel. Original etching with aquatint, c1815-19.
ABRAHAM BLOEMAERT Gorinchen 1564 – 1651 Utrecht & FREDERICK BLOEMAERT Utrecht c1616 – 1690 Utrecht. Artist drawing from a sculpture. Copper engraving c1550. THOMAS BEWICK, Cherryburn, Mickley, Northumberland 1753 – 1828 Gateshead. A Beggars Greeting. Wood engraving, c1895. GUY MALET S.W.E. Southsea 1900 – 1973 Dichling. In the Chilterns. Original wood engraving, c1939.

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The Current Selection:

Old Masters
From the Catalogue
Modern British Prints
Modern Continental Prints
Prints by Women
Prints under £250

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GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI, Mozzano di Mestre, Venice 1720 – 1778 Rome. Altra Veduta del Tempio della Sibilla in Tivoli. Original etching, c.1761-65.

GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI
Mozzano di Mestre, Venice 1720 – 1778 Rome

Altra Veduta del Tempio della Sibilla in Tivoli
EHLAnother view of the Temple of Sibyl
EHL(the broken side of the colonnade)
Hind 62 i/iii; Wilton-Ely 195
447 x 66 mm
Original etching, c.1761-65.
The plate signed.
First state, before the posthumous plate numbers.
Probably a lifetime impression, as printed on thick laid paper watermarked with a fleur de lys in a double circle, typical of paper used by Piranesi himself.
The usual central fold, though only visible recto in the margins.

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Tivoli, perched high on the acropolis of the city in the Sabine hills, where the river Aniene drops in cascades, was a popular subject with artists in the 18th and 19th centuries. Piranesi etched several plates of the town, of which three show the Temple of the Sibyl (now called the Temple of Vesta, though its dedication remains uncertain).

Most artists depicted the temple complex from afar, showing its picturesque position in the landscape. Piranesi etched it close to, from a low view point so it towers over the viewer. The view offered here is the most dramatic and romantic of his three plates.

In Roman times Tivoli inspired poets to thoughts on the brevity of life – hence Horace’s Carpe Diem (Seize the Day).

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FRANCISCO GOYA y Lucentes, Fuente de Todos, Aragon 1746 – 1828 Bordeaux. Disparate cruel. Original etching with aquatint, c1815-19.

 

FRANCISCO GOYA y Lucentes, Fuente de Todos, Aragon 1746 – 1828 Bordeaux. Disparate cruel. Original gouache drawing, c1815

FRANCISCO GOYA y Lucentes
Fuente de Todos, Aragon 1746 – 1828 Bordeaux

The Disparates (Follies or Irrationalities) were Goya’s last series of etchings and remained unpublished in his lifetime. Eighteen of the twenty-two extant plates were first issued in 1864 under the title Los Proverbios (Proverbs). Plate numbers were added for four further editions in 1865-66, 1891, 1902 and 1904. The current title of Los Disparates follows the discovery of working proofs with titles, in Goya’s own hand, most of which included the word Disparata.

The plates were etched in Spain probably between 1815 and 1819, when the artist suffered another serious bout of illness; a period when the Spanish government was repressive.

Disparate cruel
EHLCruel Folly

Harris 253; Delteil 207 iii/iii Pl.6 of Los Disparates
245 x 355 (bevelled plate)
Original etching with aquatint, c1815-19.
Final state with the plate number in the top border.
Fifth edition, 1904.
On cream wove paper watermarked with a letter P.
Slight browning along the borderline.
Three sewing holes in the left margin.

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The preparatory sanguine gouache drawing is in the Prado. Goya overworked the drawing in places in red chalk, particularly on the staff, changing it to a rifle, though in the etching, he reverted to the original staff.

Prior to the discovery of Goya’s own title on his working proof, this plate was known as Disparate Furioso (Furious Folly) and given a subtitle Hizonos Dios y Maravillamos Nos – It is amazing – and we were made by God.

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ABRAHAM BLOEMAERT Gorinchen 1564 – 1651 Utrecht & FREDERICK BLOEMAERT Utrecht c1616 – 1690 Utrecht. Artist drawing from a sculpture. Copper engraving c1550.

ABRAHAM BLOEMAERT
Gorinchen 1564 – 1651 Utrecht
& FREDERICK BLOEMAERT
Utrecht c1616 – 1690 Utrecht

Abraham and his youngest son, Frederick, conceived the idea of a drawing book, based on Abraham Bloemaert’s drawings, in the later 1640’s. Abraham redrew a large group of his earlier drawings so that they had a stylistic unity and Frederick engraved them and issued them in parts from 1650.

There was no text, just sequences of images as visual models, progressing through heads, limbs etc to full figure studies. Most were pure monochrome line engravings, printed from copper plates, but for a few, including the title page to Part 1, Frederick added ‘chiaroscuro’ colour from woodblocks.

Artist drawing from a sculpture
Hollstein 36
283 x 275 mm
Title page of Het Tekenboek… (The Drawing Book of Abraham Bloemaert), c1550.
Copper engraving printed in black, with two woodblocks printed respectively in brown and ochre.
The plate signed with Abraham’s name.
A later impression, on laid paper with a crowned escutcheon with Lily watermark, typical, as the darker colour brown, of an issue by Nicholas Visscher II, after 1682 when he acquired his publishing privilege.
Printing crease in the top right corner and other small defects.
Trimmed close to the plate on three sides and immediately below the borderline at the foot, thereby losing Frederick’s name as engraver, the title, and Nicholas Visscher’s publication line.

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Ex collection L A De Vries (not in Lugt).

Both artists and collectors surrounded themselves with plaster casts, which were both ornamental and instructive. As pupils, young artists began by drawing from casts before moving on to human models.

Walter Strauss comments in his book on German & Netherlandish Clair-Obscure woodcuts, that practicing drawing from plaster models was specifically recommended by Carel van Mander in his Het Schilderboek, 1604. At the same time Van Mander also recommended students to look at the chiaroscuros made after Parmigianino.

“ In regards to prints with a tone background adorned with highlights, you should look at those after the famous Parmigianino and others. They will open your eyes and show how to draw with washes to give the effect of light and dark and of three-dimensionality. You can practice this by using good plaster casts for models. ”

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THOMAS BEWICK, Cherryburn, Mickley, Northumberland 1753 – 1828 Gateshead. A Beggars Greeting. Wood engraving, c1895.

THOMAS BEWICK
Cherryburn, Mickley, Northumberland 1753
EHL– 1828 Gateshead

The Father of wood engraving, Bewick refined the technique described by Jean Michel Papillon in his 1766 Treatise.

Bewick used boxwood cut end grain, and employed the burins typical of metal engraving to achieve fine lines which would print ‘white’, as well as introducing the technique of selectively lowering parts of the block for softer textures.

Bewick trained with the Newcastle general engraver Ralph Beilby and joined him in partnership. Beilby principally engraved on metal and glass, and commissions in the ‘new’ wood engraving were carried out by Bewick. His reputation as a wood engraver was established in 1790 with the publication of the General History of Quadrupeds, followed in later years by the History of British Birds; both projects labours of love that were carried out in the evenings after work hours.

After 1790, when Beilby retired, Bewick used the assistance of his apprentices for some of the tailpieces done after his original miniature watercolour sketches. These little glimpses, telling and often humorous anecdotes, of Northern life, which Bewick punningly called Tale-pieces are perhaps the most admired of all his work. Asked what he was thinking of on his deathbed, the answer was designing more tailpieces.

A Beggars Greeting
43 x 74 mm
Wood engraving, c1895.
A tailpiece used in the History of British Birds.
On wove paper trimmed to narrow margins round the image, cut from a copy of the book, with text verso.
An accidental ink stain in the margin recto and a thin patch verso.

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This block is now considered to be cut to Bewick’s design and under his supervision, by Luke Clennell. Clennell was apprenticed to Bewick from 1797 to 1804, and was his principal assistant with the History of British Birds. His apprenticeship completed, Clennell moved to London, where in 1806 the Society of Arts awarded him the Golden Palette for his wood engraving of a battle scene.

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GUY MALET S.W.E. Southsea 1900 – 1973 Dichling. In the Chilterns. Original wood engraving, c1939.

GUY MALET S.W.E.
Southsea 1900 – 1973 Dichling

In 1918 before serving in the First World War, Malet attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. After the War, from 1924-26 he attended the London School of Art, and in 1927 studied wood engraving with Ian Macnab at the Grosvenor School of Art.

In the Chilterns
129 x 181 mm
Original wood engraving, 1939 or earlier.
Signed in pencil, entitled and numbered 8/20.
On tissue-thin japan.

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An impression was exhibited at the Society of Artist Printers in 1939.

In 1941, in an article in The Artist, Malet wrote of wood engraving ...

To me, the attraction of this medium lies in its definite quality, the strong patterns of black, grey and white one is able to achieve, and the variety of surface pattern obtainable by the use of various engraving tools.

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