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GIOVANNI BATTISTA TIEPOLO
Venice 1696 – 1770 Madrid

The brother-in-law of Francesco Guardi, and a contemporary of Canaletto, Giambattista Tiepolo, as he was known, was renowned for his luminous fresco decorations.

He started etching about 1735, probably for his own private pleasure in response to seeing the etchings of Castiglione and Salvator Rosa which he had studied in the collection of Anton Maria Zanetti. His first series of etchings, ultimately entitled Vari Cappricci, were first published 1742 by Zanetti, who included them in his Raccolta de Varie Stampe, together with his own chiaroscuro woodcuts after Parmigianino. Zanetti described Tiepolo’s etchings as being of a most spirited and piquant taste and worthy of the highest esteem. He reissued them in 1749.

In 1785 Tiepolo’s son GianDomenico published them for the first time independently, as a suite of ten, with the title Vari Capricci; their last issue. The titles of the individual prints are only descriptive and were given by later cataloguers.

The subjects are enigmatic, ranging over fortune, divination, contemplation of death, the transience of time. Some evoke the ancient or Arcadian world with, as here, figures beside classical urns and obelisks.

In 1774 the great French connoisseur, collector and printseller, Pierre-Jean Mariette, wrote of Tiepolo’s rich and fertile genius … it shines above all in his prints.

Standing Woman
with her hands on a Vase,
and two Men and an Obelisk
Rizzi 32; de Vesme 6
138 x 177 mm
Original etching, c1735-40.
Signed in the plate.
On unwatermarked laid paper.
A couple of old hinge stains verso in the margins, not affecting recto.

£1650

Ex collection: John Rowlands, former Keeper of Prints & Drawings at the British Museum.

The print is sometimes entitled ‘Standing woman, hands on a Vase, with a Soldier and Slave’.

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THOMAS CRESWICK R.A.
Sheffield 1811 – 1869 Bayswater, London

A landscape painter, Creswick was amongst the earliest of British artists to paint directly from nature in the open air. He had settled in London in 1836 and was a foundation member of The Etching Club in 1838.

Light permeates his earliest etchings and in this respect he anticipates and probably inspired Samuel Palmer.

Moonlight
94 x 151 mm
Etching, 1839.
The plate signed, dated and inscribed Etching Club.
Printed on chine on a wove support, probably as issued in Etched Thoughts by The Etching Club, published 1844 by Longmans, the first formal issue, edition of about 240.
Trimmed in the margins.

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The etching accompanied lines from Shelley’s “The Cloud”

That orbed maiden, with white fire laden,
W hom mortals call the Moon …

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PATIENCE GALLOWAY

A woodcut artist exhibiting with the Society of Graver Printers in Colour.

(Carrying Faggots)
171 x 270 mm
Original colour woodcut.
Signed in pencil.
On japan.

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BLAIR HUGHES-STANTON S.W.E.
London 1902 – 1981 Kings Lynn

After a boyhood six years on the Royal Navy training ship HMS Conway, Hughes-Stanton attended the Byam Shaw School, 1919-22, the R.A. Schools 1922-23, and evening classes at Underwood’s Brook Green School 1921-25 being left in charge of the school when Underwood visited America 1925-28. In 1923 the American Marion Mitchell introduced her fellow students at Brook Green to wood engraving, which became an important activity at the Underwood school.

A founder member of the short-lived English Wood Engraving Society in 1925, Hughes-Stanton was invited to join the Society of Wood Engravers in 1932.

In 1930, with Gertrude Hermes, whom he had married in 1926, Hughes-Stanton moved to Powys to direct and engrave for the Gregynog Press, together with Agnes Miller Parker and her husband William McCance. Here he produced some of his best work. He left Gregynog in 1933 after separating from Hermes and moved to East Anglia where he founded the Gemini Press. In the War he was seriously injured in a POW camp and not repatriated till 1943.

In later decades, Hughes-Stanton turned to using lino for colour printing and to create much larger, spectacular, images as he went increasingly abstract.

Sun down, Sun up
350 x 500 mm
Original colour linocut, 1958.
Signed in pencil, dated, entitled and numbered 15/30.
On tissue-thin japan.

Sold

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Count ANTONIO MARIA ZANETTI the Elder
Venice 1680 -1767 Venice

A connoisseur, collector and insurance agent, Zanetti was central to the 18th century revival of chiaroscuro woodcuts.

On a visit to London in 1721 he bought a collection of 130 drawings by Parmigianino and Raphael, which had belonged to the Duke of Arundel; and in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire discovered 16th century chiaroscuro woodcuts, many of which, coincidentally, had been made after drawings by Parmigianino and Raphael.

On his return to Venice he began to experiment with cutting chiaroscuro blocks himself, made after the drawings he had bought in London. In the 1730’s he issued thirty-nine of his prints as a set, and in 1749 re-issued them with a further thirty additional examples of his work.

Mucius Scaevola putting his hand in a brazier
Bartsch 57
160 x 105 mm
Chiaroscuro woodcut after Parmigianino, from two blocks, c1749 or earlier.
Signed with the monogram on the base of the pedestal.
Printed in black and sky blue.
Trimmed to the borderline.
Laid paper, edged verso with some related creasing.

Sold

Caius Mucius was a legendary Roman hero described by Livy. In disguise he entered the camp of Lars Porsenna, leader of the Etruscans who were besieging Rome, with the intent of killing him. By mistake he killed his secretary sitting next to him. To show disregard for his own life Mucius thrust his right hand into the flames of an altar fire and let it burn. Porsenna, amazed at his endurance, let him go free. Thereafter he was called Scaevola (left-handed).

In the Renaissance and later he symbolised patience and constancy and his ‘sacrifice’ was also held to be a prefiguration of Christ’s.

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KARL SARTORIUS
An artist working in the Lower Rhine region of Germany in the 1930’s; one of a group working in a late Expressionist style.

Dame mit Schleier
Woman with a veil
200 x 90 mm
Original woodcut, c1934.
Signed in pencil.
On japan.
The margins soiled, with some foxing and other handling defects.

£250

Plate 11 in the Portfolio Holzschnitte niederheinischer Künstler, published Krefeld c1934.

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